Marlyne Hammon knows what it’s like to feel hated and hunted. In 1953, when she was an infant, her father€along with dozens of other men in her tiny community of Short Creek, Ariz.€was arrested and sent to jail on charges of polygamy. She, her mother and siblings were forcibly exiled from the community and sent to live with a family in a nearby city. Her father was released after a week, but because the family feared further prosecution, they lived apart and corresponded in secret for the next six years. “Our community had this idea that we should live our lives quietly to avoid trouble,” she says. “We were taught not to make a big ruckus.” Not anymore. Hammon, who’s involved in a polygamous relationship, is a founding member of the Centennial Park Action Committee, a group that lobbies for decriminalization of the practice. She’s among a new wave of polygamy activists emerging in the wake of the gay-marriage movement€just as a federal lawsuit challenging anti-polygamy laws makes its way through the courts and a new show about polygamy debuts on HBO. “Polygamy rights is the next civil-rights battle,” says Mark Henkel, who, as founder of the Christian evangelical […]

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