Ed Kociela - Author of "Plygs" on "Polygamy USA" Dixie State Discussion on Polygamy - and Video

**Ed is answering all questions posted tonight!!!

Today is a great day to tie in a post about "Polygamy USA" s01e06 "The New Polygamists"

Ed Kociela - Author of "Plygs" was on the show Polygamy USA after going to the discussion at Dixie State University in St. George, Utah. "Polygamist Culture and Alternative Religious Traditions" were discussed at the forum. Here's a link  Dixie Today

Remember in Polygamy USA when Marleen Barlow aka Thomson, was driving to the discussion telling us how she wanted to tell her story, and how they feared "her whole family ripped apart?" The Browns had a similar storyline...well, one good reason to watch "What Love is This" below... Ed Kociela and Doris Hanson discuss if there is a reason for fear, and why the TV stars always tell us about it....

In short, the Centennial Park ladies go to "tell the truth" about their lives in polygamy. Sorta like the Browns tonight. 

Marleen asks the crowd if they associate polygamy with Warren Jeffs or some type of abuse...I don't have a pic but UP goes Ed's hand.  Ed was the long haired cool looking guy in the audience that the camera kept going back to in the episode...and next to him is his lovely wife Cara, whom also is a poster here at SWB. The camera liked the couple and kept going back to them during the show.
 

Author Ed Kociela Questions and wife Cara observes

 Audience questions leads to Ed's "We have heard there are misconceptions but we're not told which ones they are." "We are told there is a difference between the CPark group and the FLDS." 
"What are you, where are you, and where do you stand?" Ed questions the ladies.
 

CPAC members Polly, Marlyne Hammon, Priscilla, and Maureen Thomson (Barlow)answer

Priscilla responds: "CPark people have never been a part of the FLDS.  The organized after we were out in CP already.""To say that we are an offshoot of the FLDS just isn't true and one of those misconceptions." 

Marlyne responds, "There's laws to take care of that today...it happens in monogomy...it's not polygamy that creates these type of people, it's people that created this type of people." 

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I contacted Ed and asked him to write a little piece about the filming. We got lucky and he did. We're lucky enough to get 2 behind the scenes views of televised debates with polygamists. BIG thanks to Ed for writing this piece and overall helping me this week, and to his wife Cara, who also has been a great support and helps me when I have blonde moments and keeps me going--- THANKS GUYS!!!
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FROM ED: I spent a lot of years in the media as a reporter, columnist, editor in the print field and commentator in broadcast. My blood would boil as I would hear people spit out epithets about “The Media” and its failures.

I left my last job in the newspaper business as a local news editor/columnist for one of the newspapers in the Gannett chain two years ago to write the book ‘plygs’ (http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008NRZT1M), a journalistic novel about life within a polygamous community located on the Utah-Arizona state line. My wife, Cara, and I moved to the tip of Baja California, Mexico to remove ourselves from the day-to-day lifestyle and         pressures of life in the southern Utah to allow me the comfort and distance to string together what I hope were some coherent words.

From afar, we observed the “Sister Wives” phenomena and, since our return, as we work PR and promotions for the book, “My Three Wives” and the latest entry into the world of polygamy TV, National Geographic’s “Polygamy, USA.”

After examining these shows, I have to jump the fence and agree that, well, “The Media” has let us down. You see, polygamy as practiced in the real world by Mormon fundamentalists is nothing like what is portrayed in these shows.

It is dark, perverse, criminal. And, it is eliciting support among a group of civil libertarians who argue that the government has no right to peak behind our bedroom curtains. The sad truth, however, is that the issue of polygamy is much more complex, that while individual freedoms should be guaranteed for all, they should not come at the expense of little girls who are sexually abused when forced into marriage with much older men; that it should not come at the expense of women who are coerced into a life of servitude to ensure their eternal salvation; that it should not come at the expense of young boys who are forced out of school and into the shops, work crews, and factories of the church-owned businesses; that it should not come at the expense of the taxpaying public who forks over nearly $14,000 a month in welfare benefits as the people of the community participate in the practice of “bleeding the beast,” which in simpler terms is defrauding the government to obtain money, food stamps, health care, and other government benefits that kick in the moment they write “father unknown” on their child’s birth certificate.

You won’t see that on “Sister Wives,” you won’t see that on “My Three Wives,” you won’t see that on “Polygamy, USA.” Instead, you will see a sanitized polygamous lifestyle that has little in common, other than plural marriage, with the overwhelming majority of polygamists in this country.

“Polygamy USA” takes us inside of the tiny community of Centennial Park, Ariz., where about 1,500 people who live three miles from the fundamentalist Mormons who follow Warren Jeffs, the self-proclaimed prophet of the FLDS church who is serving a sentence of life plus 20 years in a Texas prison after he was convicted of sexually assaulting two young girls—one 12, the other 14—who he took as “spiritual wives.” A dozen other men were also charged after an investigation revealed that 12 girls, between the ages of 12 and 15, had been given in “spiritual married” to much older men and that seven of them had one or more children.

The Centennial Park group, which is known as “The Work of Jesus Christ” and “The Second Ward” claims no ties to Jeffs and the FLDS after a nasty break in the 1980s over leadership, something they proclaimed loudly when we went to Dixie State University in St. George, Utah recently to listen to a group of women from the community speak.

Although we had heard about “Polygamy, USA,” we didn’t know that the National Geographic crew would be present that day, filming the women for a segment of the show. And, when I asked a question of the women, I didn’t have a clue whether it would make the show’s final cut.

I was more surprised with how the responses to my question that day were edited and was even more surprised when a spiel by one of the women about how she explained to her children, who came to her after learning of a raid on the Texas FLDS compound, that the police took all the children away because they had “more than one mommy” when the reality was that the police raided the FLDS compound because of reported sexual offenses against children.

I am concerned because these shows do little to expose the complexities of polygamy, the dark side of it, at a time when there is a serious movement to have Utah’s anti-polygamy laws overturned. We already have an attorney general who has stated that he will follow his predecessor’s policy of not prosecuting polygamy violations, we have the Kody Brown (“Sister Wives”) family suing to overturn the state’s polygamy laws, and we have some traction among a small group of people who are well-intentioned in their belief in civil liberties, but are woefully uninformed when it comes to the abuses of polygamy.

There are those who support legalization or, at least, decriminalization. However, the danger is that either step would eliminate all oversight and make the crimes against children easier to commit and closet from the public eye. Legalization or decriminalization would legitimize a culture built upon perversion and fraud. Legalization or decriminalization would continue the coercion of women into servitude under the guise of religion, depriving them of their basic human rights.

But, you won’t get that by watching “Sister Wives,” “My Three Wives,” or “Polygamy, USA.”  Damn media!

**If you haven't already, read the new book by Ed, "plygs" a journalistic novel based on historical facts that is riveting. Many have been talking about it here the past few days. We will be reviewing the book soon!

**This is another must see. Doris and Ed have such a great discussion on many facets of polygamy including the politics of, The Brown family, Polygamy USA, should polygamy be legal, well, you've got to watch it for yourself! Great show.  

Polygamy: What Love Is This? with author Ed Kociela (2 May 2013)

Author Ed Kociela has a knack for taking his readers behind closed doors. He has taken readers into the home of a family victimized by the nuclear fallout of the Cold War Era nuclear blasts at the Nevada Test Site in "Downwinders...the play," opened the doors to the frightening secrets locked away within a fundamentalist Mormon polygamous cult in "plygs," and now walks you backstage to hang out with some of the biggest stars in rock 'n' roll history in "It Rocked! (Recollections of a reclusive rock critic)." The book includes intimate looks at such musical giants as George Harrison, Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, The Beach Boys, Peter Frampton, KISS, Foreigner, Journey, BB King, Frank Zappa, Willie Nelson, Carlos Santana, Dick Clark, and many others who he interviewed, worked with, and got to know as a rock critic for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner and music industry publicist.

"Plygs" is the culmination of his 16-year career as a newspaper reporter, columnist, and city editor for The Spectrum, a Gannett newspaper located in St. George, Utah, which is located about 45 minutes from the community along the Utah-Arizona state line upon which his novel is based.

 "Downwinders," was one of only three presented for a series of readings by the Utah Shakespeare Festival's "New American Playwright Series" in 2005. Kociela has also written two screenplays.

He is an acclaimed writer whose work has bridged many aspects of the media world. As a newspaperman, he won numerous awards from the Associated Press and Society of Professional Journalists. He now works as a freelance writer and weekly columnist for STGnews, an online news outlet. His career includes newspaper, magazine, and broadcast experience as a sportswriter, rock critic, news reporter, columnist, blogger, and essayist. Over the years, his work has been featured in myriad publications ranging from the Los Angeles Times and Los Angeles Herald-Examiner to US magazine and GOAL!, the magazine of the National Hockey League.

(Source: Ed Kociela, Cara Curfew-Kociela, PolygamyUSA s01e06, Polygamy: What Love Is This? with author Ed Kociela (2 May 2013))