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(AP File Photo) VANCOUVER, British Columbia (AP) -- The leader of a polygamous community in western Canada calls the charge against him for practicing polygamy religious persecution.
Winston Blackmore and James Oler, leaders of rival polygamous factions within the community of Bountiful in southeastern British Columbia, were arrested Wednesday and charged with practicing polygamy.
Blackmore, 52, is charged with marrying 20 women, while Oler, 44, is accused of marrying two women.
Blackmore said Thursday there are tens of thousands of polygamists across the country but his religious sect is being targeted, disregarding his basic constitutional right to religious freedom.
"This is not about polygamy," Blackmore said in a statement to reporters in Bountiful. "To us this is about religious persecution."
He said the issue is political. "It is therefore no surprise to us that this spectacular grandstanding event has happened in the face of an up and coming provincial election," he said.
British Columbia Attorney General Wally Oppal said the charges carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison. He said the case will be the first test of Canada's polygamy laws.
The men are expected to rely on the Canadian constitutional right to religious freedom in the case which starts Jan. 21 in Creston, British Columbia. Analysts said the case will likely reach Canada's Supreme Court.
If the prosecution fails, it would open the door to polygamy in Canada.
Blackmore, long known as "the Bishop of Bountiful," runs an independent sect of about 400 members in the town of Bountiful. He once ran the Canadian arm of the Utah-based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but was ejected in 2003 by that group's leader, Warren Jeffs.
Oler is the bishop of Bountiful's FLDS community loyal to Jeffs. Even though many of the town's residents are related or have same last name, followers of the two leaders are splintered and are not allowed to talk with each other.
FLDS members practice polygamy in arranged marriages, a tradition tied to the early theology of the Mormon church. Mormons renounced polygamy in 1890 as a condition of Utah's statehood.
Last June, Oppal appointed a special prosecutor to look into allegations of criminal abuse at Bountiful despite two earlier legal opinions that said it would be difficult to proceed with criminal charges for polygamy itself.
Blackmore openly acknowledges having numerous wives and dozens of children but has said his community abhors sexual abuse of children.
Blackmore said the arrest was very upsetting for his family. "My little children couldn't do their school work, and were emotional and traumatized by the uncertainty of the event. My college children couldn't focus," said Blackmore, who reportedly has more than 100 children.
He said family members were waiting for him when he was released from a Cranbrook jail. "We had a wonderful reunion and as I stood there in Cranbrook with a dozen grown up sons and daughters, all struggling in their own way to understand this religious persecution, not to mention the inevitable question of why a government ... would target them," he said.
Oppal, a former judge, said Wednesday some legal experts believe polygamy charges won't withstand a constitutional challenge in Canada over the issue of freedom of religion, but he said he believes it is a valid offense and wants to leave it up to a judge to decide.
Oppal has said British Columbia's attorney general's office has had a file on the Canadian community for two decades. Bountiful was previously investigated in a three-year review that was launched in 2004. No charges were brought.
Oppal said last year that investigators saw what happened in Texas and wanted to avoid a repeat of the situation.
Last April, Texas authorities raided an FLDS ranch and put more than 400 children into foster care. The children were returned to their parents in June after the Texas Supreme Court ruled the state overstepped in removing all the children when it only had evidence of abuse or neglect involving about a half-dozen teenage girls.
The FLDS, with an estimated 10,000 members, is headquartered in Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah. In 1947, a small group moved just across the border into Lister, British Columbia. The newcomers dubbed the pristine spot at the base of a snowy mountain range Bountiful.
Besides an estimated 1,000 Canadians living in Bountiful, the U.S. Embassy estimates there are about 300 Americans there who are loyal to Blackmore and 200 others who follow Jeffs, who is in jail awaiting trial in Arizona on four counts of being an accomplice to sexual conduct with a minor.
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Associated Press writer Jennifer Dobner in Salt Lake City contributed to this report.
(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
