homas Arthur Green is, well, a busy man. The 52-year old resident of Nephi, Utah lives among a cluster of trailers near the Nevada border, and is at the center of a dispute involving a practice which for 104 years has been against the law in this heavily Mormon state -- polygamy. Mr. Green has five wives, a total of 28 children (another on the way), and recently told reporters, "We're a family like any other, only larger." He is described as a "modern-day poster child for polygamy," and has taken his case for this religion-inspired lifestyle to national media, including The Jerry Springer Show and the more mainstream "Dateline NBC."

   Green goes on trial in January in what is considered a rare test of Utah's 104-year ban on plural marriage. The case is attracting an unusual amount of interest, and it divides civil libertarians, legal groups and government officials along some unusual fault lines.

   First, some definitions...

   ¶    BIGAMY is the criminal offense of marrying one person while still legally married to another.

   ¶    PLURAL MARRIAGE, also POLYGAMY is having more than one spouse. In the religion of the Mormon Church -- until doctrine was conveniently altered in the 1800s to allow Utah to enter the Federal Union -- there is "celestial marriage" which allows, by special permission, sanction or covenant on behalf of God, a man to take more than one wife.

   ¶    POLYGYNY is the practice of having more than one wife at one time. The contrast with "polygamy" or "plural marriage" may be minimal, but the point was exploited by a descendant of the inventor of the Mormon religion, Joseph F. Smith, who told a Congressional Subcommittee that Mormons no longer practiced polygamy, but rather lived in polygyny.

   ¶    POLYANDRY is the practice of women having more than one husband at one time. This arrangement is unusual, and critics say that the Utah case involves males having multiple wives, and often marrying them at a young age.

   Article 3 of the Utah State Constitution outlawed the practice of "polygamy and other kindred offenses. For some of the state's Mormon population, though, it has continued to exist as a lifestyle. Until recently, the state appeared to turn a blind eye toward the practice. Women who have described themselves as victims of the polygamous system have made their voices heard and in response the state of Utah has slowly begun a series of investigations and prosecutions into "polygamous cults" and communities. A poll taken this past summer by the Desert News, a Salt Lake City newspaper owned by the Mormon Church, shows that a slight majority of Utah residents support aggressive crackdowns on the practice. Only 10% of respondents "strongly oppose" the action, and 15% were undecided.

   The Tapestry Against Polygamy group (www.polygamy.org) charges that the practice has little to do with legitimate religious freedom, and does not always involve "consenting adults" who voluntarily enter into such marital arrangements. They add that children are often "sealed" or promised to husbands at an early age, and that even women over 18 can find themselves captive in brutalizing and dysfunctional marriages from which they see no escape. There are tales of incest as well, especially in the small communities where extended families still carry on the lifestyle.

   The Utah trial focuses on many of these issues. Green faces multiple charges including four counts of bigamy, criminal nonsupport for $50,000 the state paid in welfare benefits to his family, and one count of child rape for allegedly having sex with one of his wives when she was 13 years of age. If convicted, he could face between five years and life in prison.

   The flap over polygamy is closely linked to the role played in Utah history by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Mormons. Polygamy evolved as a doctrine in the early days of the religion when founder Joseph Smith taught that the practice was approved by God, and based upon the lives of Old Testament prophets who acquired multiple wives. It was also reflected in the church's teaching of "celestial marriage," where husbands and wives -- after being "sealed" together on earth -- would find themselves reunited in the afterlife. When polygamy was ensconced as an official component of Mormon doctrine, thousands of members, including new converts from England, Denmark and Sweden, left the church in droves. One writer described it as "like tinder in a parched land."

   The practice was widely condemned outside of the church, and in 1854 the Republican Party officially compared polygamy with the institution of slavery, labeling them the "twin relics of barbarism." Eight years later, Congress outlawed plural marriages.

   As Mormons poured into the state of Utah in the nineteenth century, the practice continued even under Smith's successor, Brigham Young. The effort to have Utah join the Union, though, put the LDS in conflict with many of the state's citizens, and in 1890 the church conveniently altered its doctrine.

   Splits occurred within the LDS, and splinter polygamous groups -- many living in remote communities -- carried on the practice. Today, it survives in communities like Hildale, Utah and Colorado City, Arizona. Once called the town of Short Creek, Colorado City was the site of a spectacular July 26, 1954 raid ordered by Gov. Howard Pyle where dozens of state police, social workers, sheriffs, photographers and journalists descended upon the community as part of a crackdown on polygamy. Pyle announced the action live, from a Phoenix radio station and declared: "Here is a community .... unalterably dedicated to the wicked theory that every maturing girl child should be forced into the bondage of multiple wifehood with men of all ages for the sole purpose of producing more children to be reared to become mere chattels of this totally lawless enterprise..." Pyle's action, though, backfired and even elicited sympathy for the polygamists, especially when photographs appeared showing youngsters being carried off in the middle of the night and men jailed for what appeared as an unusual, but seemingly benign lifestyle. Interestingly, one of the few newspapers voicing support for the raid was the LDS-owned Deseret News.

   The practice lives on in many of these rural communities and remote outposts. Some polygamous units depend heavily on food stamps, welfare subsidies and other government aid in order to support the large families which their old-style Mormon faith demands. Many are members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS). A 1998 investigation by reporter Tom Zoellner of the Salt Lake Tribune revealed shockingly high rates of welfare subsidies in polygamous hamlets, although one town member suggested that the dependence on state assistance was so pronounced because religious prejudice had "created a ghetto" and marginalized those who practiced the lifestyle.

   An estimated 30,000 Westerns live in some form of polygamous arrangement.

   The debate over polygamy has created some unusual political fault lines.

   ¶    Some observers suggest that the Green case is simply a way for state and LDS officials to "clean house" in anticipation of the Salt Lake City Olympics, scheduled for 2002.

   ¶    Groups like Tapestry Against Polygamy describe a "Berlin Wall of polygamy (that) is tumbling down," and charge that the practice exploits women and abuses children. Tapestry director Vicky Prunty says that her organizations has rescued more than 300 women and children from abusive polygamous arrangements; and in 1999, the group demonstrated at the state Capitol with young girls wearing bridal gowns during a debate over a proposal to raise the minimum marriage age in Utah from 14 to 16. The measure was approved.

   ¶    Mr. Green is represented by Attorney David Leavitt, who happens to be the brother of Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt.

   ¶    Polygamists and defenders cite freedom of religion, and argue that they have every right to participate in such voluntary arrangements. The Utah ACLU says that any ban on polygamy violates a constitutional right to privacy and infringes on individual freedoms. "What's the difference between polygamy and gay and lesbian rights to love each other as human beings?" asked Dr. Edwin Firmage, professor of constitutional law at the University of Utah.

   "This isn't about consensual sex acts between adults," replied Ms. Prunty. "This is about children who have no choice. Someday people will wake up to this issue and realize its abuse in the guise of religion."

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