My last name is Smith. Someone in my family told me we were related to Joseph Smith, the martyred Mormon prophet. I never thought much about it, until my father and I were driving through the Utah desert.
"What's your church?" Fellow travelers would ask at rest stops.
"Catholic," My father would reply, then quickly add, "But I'm related to Joseph Smith."
People wanted to know how and my father explained the family lineage dating back into the early 18th Century. Joseph Smith was basically the great-great-great-great-grandson of a cousin. The Mormon believers thanked my father for this information and drove off as if they had seen the devils. Mormons don't much like Catholics.
We drove from Lee's Ferry to Colorado City. There was little commerce on this desolate road, which is why this desolate region is so popular with the polygamists of the LDS. Thousands live according to the word of Joseph Smith and in Jon Krakauer's UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN the author unveils the mysteries of this secretive cult through the brutal murder of a young woman and her infant daughter. None of it is a pretty sight. Incest, murder, violence, racism, and messiahism flourish under the guise of a religion that dominates the state of Utah.
And the some of the GOP wanted Romney for their presidential hair cut.
Mind you he isn't an open polygamist.
Few of them are.
It's a secret that it best served behind closed doors, such as those you see on the big houses in Colorado City. Fences guard the stories. No stores beckon drivers to the 7/11. The town is strictly a drive-through, but for a visit to this little-known land read UNDER THE BANNER OF GOD. It's as good as INTO THIN AIR and INTO THE WILD.
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