Polygamous church kicks out hundreds of boys

A church spokesman denies allegations that excommunications were a ploy to limit competition for wives.

SALT LAKE CITY - Damned by his religion, denied by his family and left with nowhere else to go, the teenager slept in a cold tool shed just steps from a company owned by his relatives.

They went home at night to warm, cozy beds while Tom Sam Steed stole bread, cereal and nutrition bars from a gas station just to survive. He tried, several times, to kill himself, convinced he was worth nothing.

His salvation came when he got a job cleaning carpets and finally left the control of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or FLDS, and its leader, Warren Jeffs.

Former members describe a religion that thrives on domination. Every detail of their life was scripted - from plural marriages to what they could wear, who they could associate with and what job they could have.

In the past 41/2 years, more than 400 teenage boys have been excommunicated, many for seemingly minor infractions such as watching a movie or talking to a girl.

Former church members suspect something else is causing the banishment of young men. In a polygamous community, there are only so many women to go around. Older men don't want to compete with young men for wives. The boys have to go.

Now, they have been thrust into a society they have been taught is evil. They are homeless, uneducated, confused and unprepared for a world where they can make their own choices.

They are lost boys.

Sweaty and out of breath, four teenage boys barge into the kitchen for glasses of water after an exhausting game of basketball.

In many ways, they are typical teenagers. They brag about souped-up cars, listen to rapper Eminem, admire supermodel Heidi Klum, have seen The Matrix and want to go to college.

But ask them how many siblings they have, and it's clear these teens have had unusual lives. Seventeen brothers and sisters for one, 21 for another. Another lost count after 300. Most of their fathers have at least two wives.

Almost all of the 11 boys gathered this day grew up in the "creek" - the twin FLDS communities of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah, where most of the estimated 10,000 residents are church members, the largest polygamous group in the West. (Colorado City used to be called Short Creek.) Other boys lived in other FLDS communities in the West.

The FLDS is different from the mainstream Mormon church, which has disavowed polygamy and denounced the FLDS.

Living in the creek, along the Utah-Arizona border, means total submission to the church. Jeffs, whom many former members accuse of brainwashing, directs all parts of his members' lives. The church, through its charitable trust, owns the land its members built homes on, arranges marriages and requires members to wear long underwear under their clothes at all times.

Movies and television are banned. Basketball and football were taken away a few years ago, the boys say. Wives can be taken from their husbands and assigned to different men if the church orders it. Most members don't receive schooling past eighth grade.

"We're taught the only way into heaven is through this church," said Steed. "If you leave, that's worse than murder."

But this restricted life is the only one they have ever known.

Some boys ran away or left after a family member did, too. Others say they were ousted for violations such as wanting to go to public school.

Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City attorney and spokesman for the church, denies that. Parker said it is hard to generalize about the boys, but said they are not involved with the church anymore because of the choices they have made.

"These people are minimizing the reasons for their not being part of the church anymore," he said. "They tend to be juvenile delinquents, they tend to have criminal problems, they have drug problems. They have all kinds of things going on with their lives that are incompatible with the church."

Once out of the creek, the boys mostly roamed southern Utah, living in flophouses or their cars, dabbling in drugs and alcohol, meeting up with other apostates, or excommunicated members.

They can't return to their families because church members are forbidden from associating with apostates. Sometimes, parents secretly send money to their boys. But mostly they are on their own, homeless at 16 or 17, even as young as 13.

Three years ago, Shem Fischer and his brother, Dr. Dan Fischer, helped a few excommunicated boys find jobs and an education in Salt Lake City. Former FLDS members, the brothers knew the struggles the boys faced.

After the brothers helped a few boys, they started getting calls about six months ago from others who had been kicked out and sometimes dropped off in nearby communities with just the clothes on their backs. Word got around that the brothers wanted to help, and soon more than 400 excommunicated boys were identified.

"The older men don't want to compete with the young bucks. Sheer math will tell you a certain amount of them have to go," said Shem Fischer, who is related to several of the boys.

There were so many, their nonprofit foundation couldn't support them all. Now the brothers have turned to the public for help with food, housing and mentors.

"I hope that they can see they are not trash. They are valuable human citizens," Fischer said.

Six lost boys recently filed a conspiracy lawsuit against Jeffs and Sam Barlow, a former Mohave County deputy sheriff and close associate of Jeffs, accusing them of the "systematic excommunication" of young men in order to reduce competition for wives. The lawsuit also accuses them of assault, terroristic threats and child kidnapping, allegations Parker denied and said were "sensationalist."

Parker said the lawsuit violates the First Amendment because the church can excommunicate anyone it chooses.

Efforts to reach church leaders were unsuccessful. Parker said they do not speak to reporters, as did a dispatcher for the Colorado City Police Department and town hall.

Utah and Arizona prosecutors have been investigating allegations of fraud, incest, child abuse and forced marriages of young girls. Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has volunteered to be a mentor to the boys.

Steed is already getting a new start. He recently visited his mentor, Jon Krakauer, author of the best-selling Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith, a book about the FLDS church.

"Society doesn't pay any attention to this," said Krakauer. "This is a scary culture. It's like having the Taliban right up the road from Vegas, and no one pays any notice."

Steed said he no longer contemplates suicide and has been helping the other lost boys.

"When you come out of it, it's hard. I actually have a life I want to live. There's a whole world out here," he said.

"I'm actually going to maybe make something of myself."

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