The EconomistDecember 7th 2019 United States 452 ligious ones existed, others would not.
Yet it is unlikely that fewer children will
be fostered or adopted if anti-discrimina-
tion laws prevail. Not all Christian agencies
will be forced to close. A number of them
have long placed children withlgbtpar-
ents, though they have tended to do so qui-
etly. More important, the number oflgbt
Americans who want to foster and adopt
seems likely to make up for any shortfall
that arises when Christian organisations
lose their funding. Research by the Wil-
liams Institute, part of the University of
California, Los Angeles, found that of the
114,000 same-sex couples raising children
in America, 25% of them are bringing up
adopted or fostered ones, compared with
3% of heterosexual couples with children.
But in some places, especially in the
South, where religious agencies dominate
adoption and fostering services, their ab-
sence will be keenly felt. And Christian fos-
ter parents and adopters will mourn lost
connections. Mrs Buck says she would like
to offer a home to any future offspring of
her children’s biological parents. But if St
Vincent’s is no longer arranging place-
ments, she may not get the chance. 7J
udging byits shops, Short Creek seems
more like a trendy suburb of somewhere
like Portland than a small town on the
Utah-Arizona border with just shy of 8,000
people. There are two health-food stores, a
bakery and a vape shop. The occasional
sight of women in prairie dresses and the
huge houses with thick walls are the only
conspicuous evidence Short Creek was
once home to an American theocracy.
When the Church of Jesus Christ of Lat-
ter-Day Saints (lds), better known as the
Mormon church, abandoned several con-
troversial doctrines in 1890, there were dis-
senters. Some, seeking to preserve aban-
doned institutions such as “plural
marriage” (polygamy) and communal
ownership, formed communities practis-
ing “Old-Fashioned Mormonism”. By theearly 1930s Short Creek was such a place.
The settlement was largely ignored by
the outside world, apart from the occasion-
al court case over polygamy and an ill-ad-
vised raid by the state of Arizona in 1953,
when 263 children were taken from their
parents and held for up to three years, in-
citing widespread sympathy for the town.
Short Creek ultimately incorporated as two
places: Hildale City, Utah in 1962 and Colo-
rado City, Arizona in 1985. It was not until
the turn of the century that outsiders start-
ed paying attention again.
Short Creek’s church, by then called the
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints (flds), had long been
headed by a “prophet”. The church’s most
famous, Warren Jeffs, assumed the title in- By excommunicating dissenters—
which meant ostracisation by believers,
even spouses and children—Mr Jeffs took
control of the priesthood and therefore of
the town’s resources and government, as
most residents and city office-holders were
church members. He began to exercise to-
tal authority over relationships, starting by
marrying many of his stepmothers. He re-
moved all flds children from public
school and banned television, books other
than approved scripture, toys and red
clothing. Mr Jeffs was arrested in 2006 after
a stint on the fbi’s most-wanted list for
charges related to sexual abuse of a minor.
He is serving a life sentence in Texas.
Mr Jeffs’s arrest did not end Short
Creek’s legal troubles. The United States be-
gan court proceedings against Colorado
City and Hildale City in 2012, alleging that
city officials and local utility providers had
acted in concert to “deny non-fldsindi-
viduals housing, police protection, and ac-
cess to public space and services”. The flds
filled the local marshal’s office with loyal
members who turned a blind eye to under-
age marriages and food-stamp fraud. The
marshal’s office trained and equipped a
formal security force, called “Church Secu-
rity”, with the primary purpose of helping
church leaders evade the law. They held
mock fbi raids to be ready for the real
thing, and even helped burgle the business
of an ex-fldsmember who had evidence
that Mr Jeffs had raped a 12-year-old in the
presence of other girls.
The two cities lost their case in 2016.
Both then appealed, though Hildale City
withdrew in 2018. The ruling was upheld by
the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in Au-
gust of this year.
Over the course of the proceedings,
Short Creek has changed dramatically.
Many true believers have moved away,
while the town has seen both the return of
ex-fldsmembers and an influx of new-
comers. Though the government of Colora-
do City is still controlled by fldsmembers,
Hildale City elected non-fldscouncillors
and an ex-fldsmayor in 2017, causing a
number of fldscity employees to resign.
Most of the towns’ businesses opened
recently. The Edge of the World Brewery
served its first beer in March 2018. The
Black Cloud vape shop opened three
months later. Few flds-run businesses re-
main. And the children have returned to
class. An old fldsstorehouse has since be-
come Water Canyon High School.
With these changes has come a new-
found democratic zeal. At a town-hall
meeting on October 21st the citizens of Hil-
dale City debated paving the town’s many
dirt roads. Mr Jeffs’s name came up only
one time, invoked by a man who had
moved in relatively recently. There is a long
road still to travel to escape Mr Jeffs’s lega-
cy, but the community of Short Creek has
set off in the right direction. 7COLORADO CITY, ARIZONA AND HILDALE CITY, UTAH
A community begins to move beyond its disturbing past as a fundamentalist
Mormon fiefSmall townsTheocracy in America