A church allegedly told a minor child that unless she had illegal sex with a man twice her age, she would lose her salvation and “burn in hell,” reports the Salt Lake City Tribune.
When Ruth Stubbs was only sixteen she was apparently coerced through threats about damnation, to cooperate sexually and become the third “spiritual wife” of Rodney Holm, a Utah police officer.
Stubbs gave in to those threats and became essentially a household concubine for Holm, eventually producing two more children for the polygamist father of 21.
Now Holm is charged with criminal sexual misconduct and bigamy.
It seems that somehow criminal sex with a minor is “holy” within the isolated polygamist communities of northern Arizona and southern Utah.
What most faiths would call “sinful lust” or simply adultery, the so-called “fundamentalist Mormons” say is part of some heavenly plan. Well, it might be heavenly for fundamentalist pedophiles, but it appears to be hell for the young girls they victimize.
Again and again, stories like that of Ruth Stubbs have surfaced through the media, but until recently little if anything was done by law enforcement. Now Utah seems to be taking some steps to enforce its laws and protect the children caught within polygamist cults.
Hopefully, Holm will receive his just reward, and that would be prison not paradise.
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