Saturday, December 3, 2011

The Kingston Group - Now this group, you could say, "goes weird"!

Kody Brown is a Fundamentalist Mormon.We here at SWB have delved into learning about the Fundamentalist Mormons. We've looked at the F.L.D.S. - The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints; and the A.U.B. - The Apostolic United Brethren; and had a few posts about Blackmore Group and Centennial. This article starts us into the "crazy and sick" world of the Kingston Group. All of these groups believe in the same basic tenets- // Mormon fundamentalism (also called fundamentalist Mormonism) is a belief in the validity of selected fundamental aspects of Mormonism as taught and practiced in the nineteenth century, particularly during the administration of Brigham Young, an early president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Mormon fundamentalists seek to uphold tenets and practices no longer held by mainstream Mormons (members of the LDS Church). The principle most often associated with Mormon fundamentalism is plural marriage, a form of polygyny first taught by Joseph Smith, Jr., the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement. A second and closely associated principle is that of the United Order, a form of egalitarian communalism.(Source: Wikipedia)

 When Incest Becomes a Religious Tenet

Practice sets 1,000-member Kingston clan apart from other Utah polygamous groups

Written by  Greg Burton 

The Salt Lake Tribune, April 25, 1999

On a dilapidated dairy farm at the end of Redwood Road in Woods Cross, the late John Ortell Kingston, would-be Utah dairy king and self-anointed leader of one of the largest polygamous clans in America, fancied himself a geneticist.
In breeding stock, he looked for high milk production. At home, the desired traits were his own. "My father experimented inbreeding with his cattle and then he turned to his children," says Connie Rugg, one of John Ortell's estimated 65 children and one of a handful of Kingston relatives who have fled the clan. Faced with the forced marriage to an uncle, Rugg left the Kingstons.
"All my life, my family told me I had to marry a Kingston," says Rugg. "I could choose, but it had to be a brother, uncle or cousin."
While the clan shares many of the beliefs of other polygamous groups in Utah, incest, for many of the Kingston leaders, is their indelible difference.
Incest draws members inward. Fear of exposure fosters a culture of distrust, some of which is directed at members who work in Kingston-owned businesses, live in Kingston-owned homes and worship in Kingston churches.
Many Kingstons -- even those who share preferred lineage from John Ortell and LaDonna Peterson, the second of his 13 wives -- live in run-down shacks at a coal yard, above warehouses near the dairy farm and in ramshackle apartment buildings and trailers.
If female, they are married off to the few, powerful prominent males: incest is the fate of many teen-age girls. If male, some of these same "worker bees" marry only once.
"My father manipulated and controlled people," Rugg says. "He wanted to control his children and grandchildren through genetics. He believed he had superior bloodlines."
Kingston clan leaders declined requests, including letters by registered mail, to comment on this story.
The church sprang from the ideas of John Ortell Kingston's father and was founded by his brother, Charles Elden Kingston, in 1935. John Ortell Kingston was the first Kingston to experiment with incest, marrying and bearing children with two half-sisters and two nieces, according to numerous ex-members of the clan.
Ex-members' claims of incest are bolstered by court records claiming John Ortell "failed either to support or acknowledge" three children by his niece, (Susan) Mary Gustafson. In an effort to recoup $15,679 in welfare, the Utah Department of Social Services filed an order declaring John Ortell the father of three of Gustafson's children.
John and Charles' brother, Merlin Barnum Kingston, married and had children with four nieces and a half-sister, say ex-members, including one of his own daughters. At least six of Merlin's incestuously conceived children in turn married half-siblings, couplings that subsequently produced children with various deformities, says Rowenna Erickson, an ex-member who left her polygamous husband.
"It makes you sick; it turns your stomach," she says. "And yet nobody wants to do anything about it. Nobody, from the police to [Utah] Gov. [Mike] Leavitt, cares that these children are abused from conception to marriage." 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.
A seventh son, Hyrum Dalton Kingston, is a polygamist but has not married incestuously, according to ex-members.
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.
Last year, a 16-year-old daughter of John Daniel Kingston was forced to marry her uncle, David Ortell Kingston, criminal charges allege. In a secret church ceremony conducted on the 15th day of the month, the girl became her uncle's 15th wife. He later gave the girl a ring with 15 diamonds, she testified.
He sent her to live in a coal yard with other polygamous wives and their many children in South Salt Lake, visiting her rarely and usually only to have sex, she testified.
In May, the girl said she was belt-whipped by her father inside a Kingston-owned barn in Box Elder County for fleeing the marriage, and was abandoned in the home of another of John Daniel's wives. The girl's father and mother, Susan Nelson (one of John Daniel's many wives) are half-sister and brother. They purportedly have 10 children, the girl told police.
Her subsequent recounting of the ordeal is the centerpiece of a pending trial on sex abuse and incest against her uncle, David. Her father pleaded no contest April 21 to third-degree felony child abuse and faces zero to five years in prison at his June sentencing.
Salt Lake County prosecutors' initial charge of incest against David Ortell Kingston was kindled by the victim's story of manipulation and molestation.
The clan's other numerous incestuous couplings among consenting adults, though, present a troubling scenario for law enforcement: these are crimes of a sexual nature committed in private in a closed society.
Farm Roots of Incest: Marriages in the Kingston clan must be sanctioned by Paul Kingston, current head of the church, although ex-members say Paul's brothers, Daniel, David and Jesse, exert influence over who marries whom.
The same right of marriage approval was wielded by John Ortell Kingston, who began the incestuous lineage. While building his polygamous empire, John Ortell raised pigeons and Holsteins, prized black-and-white milk cows.
"I know people who bought livestock from them because they had quality animals," says a federal investigator. "Usually the women did the milking. When an inspector would show up they'd disappear and pretty soon two men would show up."
Today, the Kingston dairy is a shamble of littered fields, slouching homes and a gray-brown barn where a few cows still roam.
It was here, on the flat hay fields that stretch from the edge of Woods Cross to the crusty shores of the Great Salt Lake, that John Ortell Kingston studied the genetics of in-line breeding. "It would have been unusual if he wasn't using artificial insemination in his herd, and by virtue of that, was probably using semen from some bulls that had been inbred," says Dennis Green, a professor of beef cattle genetics at Colorado State University.
"My guess is this man had used some of these inbreeding practices in his herd so he was probably in the camp that believed superior genetics could be propagated in a particular line," Green says. "The downside is that if you don't start with good genetics, and if there is baggage in the genes of the individual, inbreeding will uncover that baggage. When you pair up those undesirable genes, something strange will pop out."
Among the polygamous Kingstons, a number of children have been born with birth defects, among them one born with two vaginas and two uteruses but no vaginal or bowel opening. Outwardly, she appeared to have no sex organs. The girl, born to John Ortell and Isabell Johnson, was not the product of an incestuous marriage. Family members attribute the defects to the advanced ages of the mother and father -- he was 64, she was 45.
"My mother should not have produced another baby," says Rugg, also Isabell and John Ortell's daughter and the baby's full sister. "Her body tried to miscarry many, many times."
The baby, delivered at Johnson's home in 1983, was taken to Primary Children's Medical Center. Blood tests showed the infant and 25 other children from numerous women were fathered by the same man, leading to one of the largest welfare fraud-settlements in Utah history.
John Ortell Kingston paid the $200,000 settlement, but denied paternity. The settlement was reached after prosecutors obtained a judge's order to sample John Ortell's DNA to compare with the 26 children's.
Now 16, Rugg's sister was married to and subsequently left one of her half-brother's sons.
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. The baby survived, but has cerebral palsy.
On Johnson's death certificate, attending physician James B. Burns wrote 15-year-old Andrea must have exhibited signs of hypertension "at least two weeks" before her death.
Rugg says the group feared taking Andrea to the hospital because members did not want to explain the child's troubling paternity.
Andrea's son, now 7, lives with his father, Jason Kingston -- Andrea's half-brother -- and Rosalind, his niece.
Genetics of Incest: Pre-eclampsia is a condition that can be traced genetically from one generation to the next and is prevalent among some Kingstons, Rugg says.
Several Kingston offspring of incestuous couplings also have been born without fingernails, a disease that could be linked to a number of genetically caused abnormalities, although an exact diagnosis is impossible without closer study of medical records. Since most Kingston children are born in homes under the scrutiny of trusted and secretive family midwives or clan leaders, documentation of medical abnormalities is rare, but not unprecedented.
In 1996, the now 31-year-old Kingston mother of two slow-growing children sought explanations at Primary Children's Medical Center. Initially, she tried to conceal her marital relationship.
"I didn't dare talk about it," she says. Eventually, she admitted she had married her half-brother and given birth to three children.
Two years later, a pair of geneticists from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Md., flew to Utah where they hoped to stage a seminar for Kingston family members about the dangers of incest and birth defects, and, presumably, gain permission to study the clan.
Two minor members of the clan attended the NIH seminar, conducted in a Woods Cross hotel room -- not far from the Kingston dairy. Disappointed more family members did not attend, the scientists left.
"I tried to get people to come, but nobody would listen," says the mother, who left the group and her marriage after her sons were diagnosed with dwarfism. She says her parents, Merlin Barnum Kingston (John Ortell's brother) and Joyce Fransden, were uncle and niece. And her ex-husband's parents, Merlin and Carolyn Kingston, were uncle and niece.
"I knew I would have to marry my [half-] brother ever since I was 12," says the woman. The couple had lived together since the age of 7, when the mother of the woman's half-brother died.
The rate at which Kingstons marry each other is "frightening," she says. "It's a bomb that's going to explode."
Her half-brother is still married to another half-sister (whose parents also were half-sister and brother) and are still members of the Kingston's order.
Other possible genetic traits include: microcephaly, a malformation of the skull in which the infant has a small head (ex-members say two children with microcephaly have died and eight others are institutionalized); blindness; spina bifida; Down syndrome; kidney disease and abnormal leg and arm joints.
While none of these can positively be linked to incest without DNA testing, geneticists say most of the conditions are exacerbated by incest.
Some genes linked to conditions like microcephaly and dwarfism are "autosomal recessive," and are found among the 22-linked pairs of chromosomes that do not include the X and Y sex chromosomes, says Lynn Jorde of the University of Utah's Eccles Human Genetics Institute, a leading genetics research center.
"You don't want to jump to the conclusion and say all of these are the result of inbreeding," he says. "But just on general principles, the offspring of uncle-niece, or half-siblings have an elevated level of genetic disease. There is no doubt about that at all. So when you see all of these diseases occurring in the children, it's possible some are the result of inbreeding."
Of all the arguments against incest, says Jorde, the likelihood that genetic abnormalities will be passed to succeeding generations is the most persuasive. "We do know there are biological hazards. A fourth to half of father-daughter and brother-sister offspring have mental or physical deficiencies. It gets pretty bleak when it gets that close."
Global Incest: Worldwide, mating among first cousins is somewhat common and sometimes encouraged. First-cousin mating doubles the chances that genetic abnormalities will be passed along. Roughly 3 to 4 percent of children from couples who aren't relatives are born with genetic defects. The rate of genetic birth defects for first cousins is 6 to 8 percent.
Stillbirths and infant deaths also are much more likely when blood relatives mate. A Norwegian study published in the April issue of the American Journal of Public Health found the risk of stillbirths and infant deaths was at least 70 percent greater when parents were first cousins rather than unrelated.
Yet in many countries, the study noted, more than one-fourth of parents are related by blood. Those countries include Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait.
Including Utah, 37 states outlaw first-cousin marriage. The 1996 Utah Legislature approved first-cousin marriages, only after age 65, or age 55 if the couple cannot conceive children.
It is possible that positive genetic traits could be passed along through human inbreeding. That apparently was John Ortell Kingston's intent, although most studies of first-cousin mating show their offspring test lower on IQ exams, Jorde says.
There is too little empirical data of uncle-niece, half-brother/half-sister mating to draw firm conclusions about the IQ, survival rates, birth defects or longevity of their offspring, he says.
"So often when you have an uncle-niece, or half-brother-sister, you have a situation where abuse is going on," Jorde says. "And when you talk about the public interest, you have to consider who pays for the consequences. If these couples are . . . mating in a way that increases genetic diseases, that the public ends up supporting, it becomes a matter of public interest."
The Kingstons are among a small number of family groups in the world who marry closer than first cousins on a regular basis.
"Incest as a policy or routine practice is rare," says Melvin Williams, a professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan and a leading expert in the study of kinship systems.
Many cultures, he says, marry outside the family in order to attract the wealth of a neighboring family or to promote alliances among warring factions.
While not discounting the prevalence of genetic anomalies, Williams says modern society's aversion to incest is, to a large extent, arbitrary and prudish. A brother's aversion to courting his sister has more to do with romance than social stigma.
"It's hard to fantasize about someone if you grew up watching them go to the bathroom," Williams says. "Living with them makes them unattractive as living partners. Humans also have decided not to [commit incest] in order to distinguish themselves from other animals. Humans put a grave prohibition on incest." Social ostracism, he adds, is not necessarily a good thing.
Of the Kingstons, Williams says: "There is not much you can do about them. The notoriety will just make them zoo specimens. People are always trying to find people who are inferior and brand them as such."
Still, if children are caught up in an abusive or incestuous situation, Williams would encourage policing. "Children should not be victims of such programs."
A Secretive Refrain: On Bountiful's bench, in a wooded and fenced complex that overlooks the Great Salt Lake, Mary Gustafson, John Ortell's niece and third wife, lives with some of her children, one who is legally blind, and grandchildren.
One recent morning she defended her complicity in arranging her daughters' marriages to their half-brothers, sons of John Ortell and LaDonna.
"Those boys are the most moral, upstanding and wonderful people I know," she said, clutching a grandchild to her thin hip. "Most of what you print is lies, lies, lies."
From the porch of Gustafson's home, there is a view of fields where cattle and ponies graze, and the remnants of the Kingston dairy.
John Ortell, who died in 1987, never met the grandchild Gustafson was holding. Or two more that scampered around her feet as she talked, pleasantly but guardedly, about the Kingston clan.
When asked, a little boy and girl at the home acknowledged who their mother is.
Then, as generations of polygamous Kingston children have been taught, they demurred to questions about their father. Naming a father could expose the truth, unveil secrets of paternity and subject the clan to further scrutiny from those who don't approve of incest.
"We don't have a dad," the little boy said. Then he scooted away, smiling, aboard a plastic toy car, his feet smacking the sidewalk.

(Source: http://www.rickross.com/reference/polygamy/polygamy25.html, picture: http://steelturman.typepad.com/thesteeldeal/2006/10/freaks.html)

***Thanks to a  commenter who sent this to me!

What are your thoughts?

50 comments:

  1. And why, precisely, is Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff ignoring the Kingstons today? There is plenty to indicate that these gross abuses are still going, on and Mark is all about prosecuting the "abuses within polygamy." Just in case you hadn't heard, Mr. Shurtleff, Canada has recently ruled that polygamy itself IS abuse, because of its "inherent harms." This means that the problems are built in to polygamy, and that you can't live it without harming someone. About time Utah got up to speed!

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  2. Like I said before, my poor Dad worked for them. He saw them living with rats and trash. They made millions from their businesses and yet don't let their members have any. The women are given co-op dollars (money that can only be redeemed at Kingston businesses) do they feel trapped. They ran a successful garbage pickup company for many years. My Dad did construction for them. He is a very clean, hardworking person and working for them was liking being in Hell. I don't think it was that long before he got another job. These people are freaks. Period.

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  3. And the poor children. All these defects? It must be soooo hard for one of them to escape. WHY is this allowed to go on?

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  4. "weird" = disgusting, sinful, inhumane, criminal, and pure evil all done in the name of "God."

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  5. The Browns aren't that far off of the track here... Kodouche may not have slept with a half sister but he has six kids with his brother-in-law's ex-wife among other familial criss-crossing. And isn't Janelle's mom now married to Kadouche's dad.... So Janelle is not only his brother-in-law's ex but she is kind of Kody's "step-sister." And this is just one wife.

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  6. https://www.facebook.com/whatloveisthis

    They've just posted that their next spotlight is on the institutional coverup of sexual and chlld abuse and what Jesus has to say about it.

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  7. Amused says...and surely not amused by this report...

    This report is fascinating in its bizarre facts.
    It speaks of macabre intentions to use humans as lab rats. To use women and children in this way is just heinous. All under the nose {and in the face] of the civilized society in which they choose to live.
    Forget the plan to "study" genetics, look at the inhuman-ness of it all.

    And....
    "And when you talk about the public interest, you have to consider who pays for the consequences. If these couples are . . . mating in a way that increases genetic diseases, that the public ends up supporting, it becomes a matter of public interest."

    Yes, the public (the taxpaying citizens) supports the consequences of such genetic abuse...and also....shells out millions of $$ in welfare programs for those who are healthy, but who are routinely scamming the system in "father-less" child support, food stamps, bankruptcies, credit card absolutions, etc.

    People just like the Browns!!!!

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  8. if they keep this up, they are just going to die out. I'm no geneticist, but I don't see how down the line the "family" will be able to survive. As the still somewhat "normal" generations die out and the degenerate ones can't have viable offspring, or are so mentally impaired that it become impossible anyway, what possible future do they have? Wasn't Doris Hanson from this group? It would be interesting to hear from her on this.

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  9. There are probably too many Kingstons for them to ever "die out". We're stuck with them for generations to come.

    Anon 10:19 - thanks for the personal perspective! This blog gets more and more interesting.

    So Utah only pursued a case for one complaining mother. Did I read that right? Is there anywhere else in the USA that a clan of hundreds (or more) incest polygamists would be left in peace to do what they wanted to their children?

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  10. Yes, I was born and raised in the Kingston Group. Yessss, they are quite ickky! We did a TV show on their incest. You can go to:
    www.whatloveisthis.tv, click on online shows, click on 2010 shows. Scroll down to June 3, 2010, show 3.22. There, I interviewed another ex-Kingston Group member. She tells quite a bit about the incest that she knew about.

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  11. Amused says........

    Thanks, Doris.
    Thanks for sharing what really needs to be known.

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  12. Doris - i love your show! you are one classy lady!

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  13. Amused says....

    Doris, I just finished watching the clip from the link you sent and I also looked at your Refuge Ministry website too. You are a lovely, articulate lady. I respect your mission and dedication.
    Surely, someone has to do this work...and you have surely stepped up.

    I recommend using Doris's link....It is worth viewing.
    www.whatloveisthis.tv, click on online shows, click on 2010 shows. Scroll down to June 3, 2010, show 3.22.

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  14. All the heinous, terrorist, despicable acts committed in the world are almost always done in the name of "religion".

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  15. Doris thank-you so much for the work you do. I listened while mopping floors. It sounds like some bizarre universe, stranger than science fiction.

    You exhibit such grace and kindness while interviewing and responding to callers. It's such an important subject to keep in the public record. You handle it calmly, without sensationalism.

    I'm so happy I found you here.

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  16. wow, I used to live to so close to them when I was a teen and had no idea. If I still lived there now, Id be getting in my car to go resuce anyone I could. (live in Florida now) Why is it that, its common knowledge where these women are, and there isnt a caravan of people trying to get them out?

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  17. anony 7:01 - cause it's their belief system and they're grown adult women. what exactly would you suggest for a caravan of people to do to get them out? these women do not think they need to be rescued from anything. they think they need protection from "sharks" like you! just saying...

    and i'm sure you're already aware if you've lived in Utah that the authorities themselves do not do anything about the tragic abuses from this felony practice going on in Hilldale/Colorado City. so, there ya go! ;')

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  18. One thing that is "weird" is that the AUB is in cahoots with the Kingston Group. They both belong to a "coalition" of polygamist groups that have banded together (for protection against the big bad world?) It's almost funny that this coalition came out and condemned the FLDS and Warren Jeffs for being so yucky. Kody Brown should be asking why AUB thinks it's OK to hold hands with a bunch of polygamista who practice such disgusting things as incest. (But maybe Kody never questions his leaders, just in case they stop him getting more "wives") Btw the Dargers are a part of the same thing. Partners in crime?!

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  19. Of course partners in crime...i saw old footage on youtube of Christine, the Darger wife, and some other lady giving "modern day views" of plyg life. This political move has been in the works for years...They gathered a church bench full of different reps..."niece Christine will head up the super-committee"....there has been a slow media drip for awhile...but this reality world....the organization was not prepared enough for this.

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  20. You're right Vastminds, the whole Sister wives show is part of a PR job for polygamy, and Christine pushed for it, with the backing of the Safety Net polygamist mob. Only thing is, as a PR ploy it's gone badly wrong for them. Anyone with half a brain cell can see how polygamy stinks, and is rotten for the women and children involved.

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  21. I just found this article:

    http://www.examiner.com/law-enforcement-in-wichita-falls/flds-polygamists-investigated-for-international-sex-trafficking

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  22. Just because Kody's group is a tad more evolved... it comes from the same cloth. People should know this.

    There are MANY things that the AUB does that is plain wrong- they just hide it better and are more educated.

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  23. Anonymous 7:08 said "One thing that is "weird" is that the AUB is in cahoots with the Kingston Group"
    Thats not true. AUB have never been in cahoots with the Kingston group. Not even close! FLDS and Warren Jeffs on the other hand, yes AUB was in cahoots with Warrens dad, but not Warren.

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  24. Anonymous 10:53pm. The evidence shows that AUB and the Kingston group are partners in something called the Principal Rights Coalition. If AUB doesn't want to be tarred with the same brush they should avoid partnerships like that. The funny thing is they wanted the FLDS to join the party - see this link -
    http://blogs.sltrib.com/plurallife/2008/06/flds-to-join-coalition.htm

    You'll also see that this link shows the Kingstons are a part of this merry band of polygamists - in my books that IS being 'In cahoots."

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  25. Anony 10:53....i always find it interesting when people insist one group has NOTHING to do with the other. Thats usually a marketing tool to put the attention on someone else. This whole operation has the same goal: the more sex, i mean, wives, they have....the better. better for God, them, whoever....but birds of a feather flock together. Something this "secret" has to have a complex web....finacial, legal, spiritual, etc....to maintain the ranks and smokescreens. Organized crime is just that.....organized.

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  26. Now I will be watching backlogs of What Love is This! Good thing I slept in today and have all night to toil away.

    That being said I'm adopted and I would never ever think of one of my cousin's or family members in that way despite the lack of blood. I know they are raised this way and raised to believe it is okay but I wonder if the incest has deteriorated the common sense part of the brain..

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  27. I watched a couple of online episodes on What love is this site. (I guess I'm going through an addicted phase regarding this topic) On one of them it was said "Polygamy makes children, not families" So true! The there was a story about a former LDS woman who followed her husband into polygamy, and it was so shocking to me that a 14 year old polygamous girl who developed a crush on her 30 year old husband, and how he was happy about hat and how they divorced so he could legally marry her since she was underage. As she continued her story, it was more about how she felt living as a sister wife, I was like, WHOA! Wait a minute! It's one thing to chose polygamy when you are an adult, but it didn't seem to disturb her all that much, she didn't seem to protest at the fact that this was a 14 year old girl!!!!! How can a 14 year old girl (and they had a daughter 3 years younger) be an equal sister wife to a 30 year old woman???? I was shocked. That is the slippery slide towards a daughter possibly being abused: in lifting the veil one woman explained that when a man keeps marrying younger and younger girls, who are the same age as his daughters, it starts to blur the line and incest can and does happen. Gross and how immoral!

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  28. Dear Doris,
    I just now saw your post. We so appreciate you talking with us and sharing! Could I talk you into writing a post about your experiences? What you learned, how you feel about it now?
    I know it's easy for us to look at these folks for what they are doing, but I'd like to hear how it affected you to leave loved ones. I will watch your video and hope to hear from you. Send us a email if you are willing. God Bless.

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  29. Doris - i know you briefly touch on your own story at your intro for each show, but i am curious about what exactly you did once you fled at 18. and how you were able to get your act together. You've definitely beat the odds, lady!! Did anyone else in your immediate family eventually leave, too?

    Do you have a show where you told your whole story in-depth? if so, which one is it? Thanks!

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  30. Lesbian4Janelle,

    It's not the nurture. It's the nature. Humans are naturally repulsed by the idea of sleeping with anyone who they were raised with. That is why many monarchies fell apart. Toddler girls were brought to court to marry young princes. By their formal marriage at adolescence, they simply couldn't get down. There's a theory that this practice is what killed the Chinese Han dynasty line.

    Adopted or not, humans have severe aversions to sleeping with anyone their brain considers family.

    Makes this Kingston ritual even sicker. The elders have to break the minds of these young girls in profound ways.

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  31. form wikipedia:

    The Westermarck effect, or reverse sexual imprinting, is a hypothetical psychological effect through which people who live in close domestic proximity during the first few years of their lives become desensitized to later sexual attraction. This phenomenon was first hypothesized by Finnish anthropologist Edvard Westermarck in his book The History of Human Marriage (1891). Observations interpreted as evidence for the Westermarck effect have since been made in many places and cultures, including in the Israeli kibbutz system, and the Chinese Shim-pua marriage customs, as well as in biological-related families.
    In the case of the Israeli kibbutzim (collective farms), children were reared somewhat communally in peer groups, based on age, not biological relation. A study of the marriage patterns of these children later in life revealed that out of the nearly 3,000 marriages that occurred across the kibbutz system, only fourteen were between children from the same peer group. Of those fourteen, none had been reared together during the first six years of life. This result suggests that the Westermarck effect operates during the period from birth to the age of six.[1]
    When proximity during this critical period does not occur — for example, where a brother and sister are brought up separately, never meeting one another — they may find one another highly sexually attractive when they meet as adults, according to the hypothesis of genetic sexual attraction (q.v.). This supports the claim that the Westermarck effect evolved because it suppressed inbreeding.

    Scientists have discovered that men and women are attracted to pheromones that are the least like theirs and repulsed by those that are most like theirs, and in this way avoid incest. So it's unimaginable the kind of twisted brain washing that has to go on to not only marry half siblings, but the fact that they could actually get themselves to have intercourse with each other..... Mindboggling!

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  32. TYVM, Religulous, for giving me the Westermarck label. I didn't know what it was called.

    The genetic sexual attraction is also fascinating. It's not much in the mainstream, but I've read a couple articles about it.

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  33. lesbian4janelle, monarchies in Europe also married double first cousins, cousins, uncles, the gene pool became so infested, some of them started being born retarded, deformed and impotent, they didn't want to share the wealth and thought they were above the commoners. They kept this up for centuries and if you really want to see goofy looking look at Prince Charles. I can't believe the state allows this!! Yuck and ick.

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  34. The monarchies of Spain were particularly rife with incestuous relationships and they turned out some grotesque and insane characters.

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  35. The question 'why hasn't the government done anything about it'? I would think it is hard for any government entity to investigate them, considering most of those in the group do not think there are ANY PROBLEMS.As with most poly women, they probably NEVER say in the 'real'world WHO THE FATHER of their children is. When, IF, A Birth Certificate is filed, the father section is left BLANK. Doubtful if any, when questioned, tell about the lurid intermarry that goes on, and only blood tests, genetic tests would tell the truth. BUT, we live in a country that grants people, almost every person, RIGHTS. Even more so, the last few years... so, I would believe that the police are up against the wall, or BANGING THEIR HEADS, when up against the Kingston. The way I see to help, the only way right now, is somehow get info in that if anyone, MALE OR FEMALE, wants out of this lifestyle, there are those on the outside to HELP THEM!

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  36. the comment about letting them die out, and the following'there are too many of them'... in a few generations, probably all of them will be babbling idiots. I would say it is amazing how a group follows ONE INSANE MAN, but look at history-HITLER, and all the past and present Dictators of the world. and HEY, we see 4 women of questionable intelligence following the Kodouche's EVERY WORD!

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  37. luna, there are people waiting to help them. Doris's Shield and Refuge ministry, and Holding out HELP are two charitable groups who help people leaving polygamy. Trouble is, these people have to want to leave, you can't make them. The word is getting out more though. HOH has put up billboards near some polygamist communities, and has had some response. It is very hard to leave with no money and sometimes no job skills, so they need to know that they won't be alone and homeless.

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  38. Slap me stupid, I thought shit like this no longer existed in America. WHY are we not protecting this from happening? WHY are the case workers not doing something?
    Where EXACTLY do all of these folks live?

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  39. Seriously, as a Christian I hate to see this go on. Can we all get together and do something proactive? DORIS, could you help us?

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  40. We need to embarrass the heck out of the Attorney General of Utah, Mark Shurtleff, by a letter writing campaign! Bombard his office with emails, demanding he take action on the information he is so often sent, and does nothing about. AND write letters to the press.
    Here are the contact details for his office-
    Questions, Complaints, Requests, or Suggestions
    General Office Numbers: (801) 366-0260, (801) 538-9600, (801) 366-0300
    Toll Free within the State of Utah: (800) AG4 INFO (244-4636)
    E-Mail: uag@utah.gov
    Please leave your name, phone number or address so you can be contacted.
    Found at http://attorneygeneral.utah.gov/contact_us.html

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  41. More on the Kingstons here by ex members - worth reading!
    http://www.utahgothic.com/features/kingstons/kingston%20life.html

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  42. MY GOD. Lord, we pray for these innocent victims.

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  43. Anon 8:43 Thanks for the phone numbers and address. Im going to make use of everyone of them.
    Fact is these Kingston men have a common everyday practice of incest and imbreeding. I would be shocked if this were happening in some backward third world country today. Here in USA? Im beyond shocked!

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  44. Wow this is so sad. I've been reading more and more on the kingstons and other unfortunate polyg situations. I felt horrified to read things from Rugg's point of view. I enjoyed watching the episode and reading simultaneously. Makes me sad, to think of the terrible abuse some people have had to go through and are still going through.

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  45. It is a sad state of affair when the government condones the rights of polygamous leaders by allowing to willfully break the law rather then to charge the criminals. Polygamy is against the law. The state of Utah allowed the Browns to make a joke out of the state for what reason? I think that parading this around is going to make polygamy more acceptable and soon the Browns would have others to forget the neglect, abuse and incest that is laced abundantly through the culture. Is it me but does the KODE look a little more feverish and beady eyed as the episodes and seasons progress? It would not hurt him to humble himself a little bit and go back to the dirt farm.

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  46. These polygamous/incestuous perverts are real abominations to their churches and are the ones who are truly destroying the sanctity of marriage in our country. Yet law abiding, consenting adult Gays and lesbians are being labeled as immoral and shouldn't being given equal rights under the law to marry???? When in the hell is our government finally going to get their priorities together and go after the real problem. These women live like prisoners and have no free will what so ever to choose who to marry.

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  47. so, so, so sad. I just discovered I'm related to the Kingstons, my great-great grandmother is the half sister of Charles Kingston whose son (Charles W. Kingston) started this group. I've known about them all my life because I live in Utah but just started reading more about them recently. This isn't right because these children do not have choice. I'm not sure how I could help but will try to find something as I learn more and am grateful to see there are women who are getting out.

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  48. If the "birth defects due to incest" idea doesn't occur to these people, or doesn't matter to them, perhaps they should look at the Habsburg European Monarchy which became extinct in the 18th century due to - you guessed it - incest. I hope it doesn't take these people dying out to give them the idea that incest may have its drawbacks.

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  49. I am Mormon, and have Muslim background. In certain social conditions, and being mindful of the dangers of "inbreeding", I have no issue with polygamy. I see it more as a way to provide security to unattached women with little children, so some of the children might not be fathered by the "polygamous" husband. Some see spiritual significance in polygamy, but I do not.

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