FACTBOX: Five facts about polygamists in U.S.
(Reuters) - Polygamy, once hidden in the shadows of Utah and Arizona, is breaking into the open as fundamentalist Mormons push to have the practice decriminalized on religious grounds.
The following are five facts on modern U.S. polygamists:
* The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the Mormon faith is formally known, practiced polygamy before the Civil War and then banned it in 1890 when the federal government threatened to deny statehood to Utah.
* In 1879, the Supreme Court said the First Amendment did not protect polygamy. In Reynolds v. United States, Chief Justice Morrison Waite wrote "Polygamy has always been odious among the northern and western nations of Europe, and, until the establishment of the Mormon Church, was almost exclusively a feature of the life of Asiatic and of African people." In Utah today, polygamy is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years in prison, but the law is rarely enforced.
* Joseph Smith, founder of the once-isolated sect now based in Salt Lake City, Utah, took at least two dozen wives, say historians. His successor, Brigham Young, had about 20.
* Today, the Mormon church distances itself from about 40,000 breakaway Mormons in Utah and nearby states who practice polygamy illegally, as well as the many excommunicated Mormons in polygamous marriages who still identify with the faith.
* The largest known U.S. polygamist sect is the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, with an estimated 10,000 followers. Dressed in 19th-century clothing, the group is led by Warren Jeffs as "President and Prophet, Seer and Revelator". Jeffs is awaiting trial in Utah on charges he was an accomplice to rape for using his authority to order a 14-year-old girl against her wishes to marry and have sex with her 19-year-old cousin.
(Compiled by Jason Szep in Centennial Park, Arizona)
