Polygamy Persists Despite Opposition
By JENNIFER DOBNER
The Associated Press
Friday, September 1, 2006

COLORADO CITY, Ariz. -- Ben Bistline chuckles when asked to explain why the practice of polygamy persists. The outside world, he says, just doesn't get it.

"We just grew up in polygamy," said Bistline, a 70-something former polygamist and local historian. "It's part of our life. I don't know how else to say it."

Bistline has lived along the Utah-Arizona border since the neighboring towns of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah _ home of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints _ were still known as Short Creek. He was there when Arizona authorities raided the community in 1953 in an attempt to stop plural marriages and has seen dozens of men and women jailed for their beliefs. the rest