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| September 21, 2009 | US church group offering travellers 'polygamy tours' | | Melbourne:
Members of a US church group
are now offering travellers "polygamy tours", which will enable them to have a
look at life in a polygamous community. "The Polygamy experience: A guided tour
of Colorado City" offers visitors the chance to "learn the story of the US's largest
and most secluded polygamist colony" with a four-hour guided tour of the US towns
of Colorado City, Arizona, and Hildale, Utah. The locals are not very comfortable
with outsiders, with the towns' practice of plural marriages and history of sexual
assault charges, of which the group's leader Warren Jeffs was convicted two years
ago, landing them under the scrutiny of police. However, tour operators hope to
show the public that polygamists are actually peaceful people, with Richard Holm
and his brother Heber being among those launching the tour. Holm was exiled from
the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), which controls
both Colorado City and Utah, in 2003, while Heber left the community 35 years
ago. Holm says that the four-hour tours will give travellers the chance to ask
any questions they may have about polygamy. "Why the prairie dresses and long
braids? No makeup? More than one wife? All questions to be answered during 'The
Polygamy Experience'," News.com.au quoted the tour's advertisements as stating.
A passenger bus seating 29 people will ferry tourists into Arizona, where guides
will discuss the origins of fundamentalist Mormonism and give travellers the opportunity
to take in the town's famous sites, and even includes a picnic. The tours cost
69.95 dollars for adults and 59.95 dollars for children. Holm has promised the
tours will be respectful, but FLDA spokesman Willie Jessop told the US's Salt
Lake Tribune the tours are a scam. "They want to come into the community like
it's a spectacle, when for us, it's like the circus is coming to town," he said.
"We hope people have more of a life than to be suckered into that sort of scam,"
he stated. However, Holm is confident the tours will be successful, and says that
the public reaction has been very positive. "I have had dozens say that it is
a good idea and they would love to go into the community and see what is going
on and haven't dared go off the highway with all the reports and rumours and things
of that nature," he added. | |
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