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Show Ml ^the Prophet and his advisors, Church officials often looked the other way when Danite violence came to light. But the Danites had served a purpose, had been a strong arm of protection for tee infant church A NOW, a century later, the misunderstood dogma had been exhumed and put to indiscriminate use among common believers. The United States Government had disobeyed i t s own constitutional amendment, disregarding the right to freedom of religion in disallowing the practice of polygamy. Then the Church had turned against its own article of faith, breaking the law of the land in pursuit of 'the higher law' -the Principle. Later, when statehood loomed, the Church abolished the Principle which had spawned many marriagesrt'many lives, and=made bastards of countless the Church dh'cMW u*> frp~ <^^> kcnr^e^j offspring. Eventually k\\ had turned on i t s own,*persecuting the ii,lifo'iiiMillii»""i3i^^ fundamentalists with the same * ferocity with whichit had been persecuted. And my father, who had taught us to keep all the laws of God, insisted that we l i e , rather than incriminate the family for living the Fullness of the Gospel. confused . . My mind swarmed withAthoughts, each protesting its own validity and virtue. Where was the line between legitimacy and illegitimacy, between outlaw and in-law? In most ways, myjfather was a law-abiding and kindly man. But what of the psychological W turc of my life, of thinking that my mother never would have married him, nor I born, if it hadn't been for Aunt Kathy? What of the horror oftfrealizing that the ambient culture regarded me as a bastard, and the feeling that my only earthly inheritance was the bottomless Gulf of Mexico? My father had often joked about his in-laws being outlaws ^d his outlaws being in-laws, exploiting the pun in as many |