Dear Polygamists

I wanted to write to say that I do feel some measure of sadness that your families in Texas are being broken up. I am sure the tears and grief you felt as the children were taken and your temple entered by police officers was quite real. I wanted to offer you some advice for the future of your religious marital policies.

I don't believe I am alone in saying that I don't care if you choose to practice plural marriage. I honestly feel that how two, or three, or four consenting adults choose to live is up to you and the rest of us have no right to tell you to stop.

The key words in that statement is 'consenting adults'. It is because you do not limit your 'marriages' to fully consenting, fully grown adults that you have law enforcement and social services tearing apart your homes and families. What you are doing when you 'marry' a 13 year-old girl to a 40-something man is making what you call a family into a crime. You make it all about sex and not at all about your religion. Those of us in the outside world will never and can never recognize your choice of lifestyle as legitimate as long as our picture of you is of lecherous old men fucking little girls in the temple and calling it good and right.

And when you toss aside your young men with little reason or provocation so more of your 40-somethings can have more of your teen girls without competition, you make yourselves into pathetic sex-driven monsters.

And I do want to say one last thing. Stop having children you can't afford to raise without government assistance. When you have 20 plus children and 4 wives who are all on food stamps you have made your lifestyle choice my burden and that isn't fair or right.

To sum up:

1. Marry other consenting adults only, no one will care.

2. Don't force little girls to marry and bear children. Ceremonially having sex with them inside your church is simply a sick fantasy that must stop.

3. Do not exile your excess young men. It makes you look pathetic.

4. Have only as many children as you can afford to raise. Birth control is a necessity.