BOUNTIFUL, B.C. - The defiant leader of a polygamous sect in British Columbia says the decision of the B.C. Crown to charge him for practising polygamy is religious persecution and political grandstanding.
Winston Blackmore said there are tens of thousands of polygamists from many different cultures living across the country but his religious sect, which openly practices multiple marriage, is being targeted.
Blackmore and James Oler, the leader of a rival faction within the community of Bountiful in southeastern B.C., were arrested Wednesday and face one charge each of practising polygamy.
Blackmore said Thursday that the Crown has disregarded his basic charter right to religious freedom.
"This is not about polygamy," Blackmore said in a statement to media Thursday. "To us this is about religious persecution."
At a brief news conference at the community school in Bountiful, in the Kootenay region of B.C. near the U.S. border, a sombre Blackmore read a statement and declined to take any questions, saying his lawyer had advised him against it.
A handful of teenaged girls, some of whom would bear no distinction from any other teenaged girl in the surrounding community of Creston, gathered in the room as Blackmore spoke to a small group of reporters. Also in the audience were a few women in the long skirts that have come to define the community to outsiders.
They watched as Blackmore told reporters the issue is a political one, not criminal.
"It is therefore no surprise to us that this spectacular grandstanding event has happened in the face of an up and coming provincial election," he read from his statement.
British Columbians go to the polls in a fixed election date on May 12.
About 1,000 members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints live in Bountiful, a neighbourhood within the town of Creston.
The sect is a breakaway offshoot of the Mormon church, which renounced polygamy more than a century ago.
Blackmore is alleged to be married to 20 women, while Oler is accused of committing polygamy by being married to two women. In the past, Blackmore has openly admitted to having numerous wives and dozens of children.
The charges against Blackmore, 55, and Oler, 44, will test Canada's ban on multiple marriage. Blackmore said the law was written "specifically against the Mormons."
But "Canada also has a Charter of Rights and Freedoms that guarantees every person the right to live their religion, and I guess now, every person except those of us who are fundamentalist believing and practising Mormons," he said.
Regardless of the outcome of the case, it will most likely end up in front of the country's highest court because of the charter issue.
"I hope this government has calculated all the risks," Blackmore said. "Time will tell."
Creston RCMP began an investigation into allegations of polygamy and sexual exploitation in the fall of 2005.
That investigation was completed in September 2006 and a recommendation was made to Crown for charges to be laid.
Last June, B.C. Attorney General Wally Oppal appointed a special prosecutor to look into allegations of criminal abuse at Bountiful, saying renewed public concerns compelled him to act.
That came despite two earlier legal opinions that it would be difficult to proceed with polygamy charges because of the charter issue.
Then last year child-welfare authorities in Texas apprehended more than 450 children from a sister polygamous community in that state, putting pressure on B.C. to act.
Prior to that, polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, the sect's prophet in the U.S., was jailed south of the border. He was convicted in Utah as an accomplice to rape for presiding over the marriage of a teenaged girl and faces trial in Arizona on other charges related to the marriages of members of sect there.
Blackmore said his own arrest has taken a serious toll on his family but "my family will be just fine."
He said he will continue to do what he's always done, raising his children and living his life.
"I am what I am, we are what we are," he said.
Although the mainstream Mormon church has renounced polygamy, he defiantly defended multiple marriage as a fundamental of the "Mormon" faith.
"We are descended from a long line of Mormon believing people. My family did not make up the our faith nor did we establish the fundamental teachings of Mormonism."
