Smart case highlights Mormon church's historical link to polygamy
Brian David Mitchell, aka Emmanuel, walks in front of ZCMI Mall on Main Street in Salt Lake City in the spring of 2002. Mitchell is being held in connection with the kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart last June. Mitchell, 49, who eventually roamed the streets
SALT LAKE CITY (March 16, 2003 9:57 p.m. EST) - Despite the Mormon Church's centurylong effort to rid itself of the stigma of polygamy, high-profile cases like Elizabeth Smart's abduction have cast the church in an unfavorable light by linking it to the outlawed practice.
The Church disavowed polygamy in 1890 and excommunicates members who practice or preach it. But an estimated 30,000 polygamists whose beliefs are rooted in Mormonism live in Utah and other parts of the southwest, Mexico and Canada.
While most of them are consenting adults, living quietly, the region's history is littered with would-be prophets who, abandoning the traditional church, sought to lead their own polygamist groups or cults.
Among them, it appears, is Brian David Mitchell, the self-styled prophet arrested last week in Smart's abduction. An excommunicated Mormon, he wrote a rambling manifesto espousing the...
