The lost boys of Colorado City

The lost boys of Colorado City | Salon Life

In a companion piece to the previous Salon post, I would like to recommend this article written about the boys who had been banished from their homes in a fundamentalist Mormon town that still practices polygamy. Basically, for any slight moral infraction a boy can be banished from his home, family, etc and left to fend for himself in the neighboring "gentile" towns in southern Utah and northern Arizona.

This fundamental sect split from mainline Mormonism when church leaders agreed to give up polygamy in order to gain statehood for Utah. There is support of this town by local politicos and, according to a former LDS Bishop-- even among the mainline Mormon leadership. Many Mormon leaders have been quoted as saying they would return to polygamy if they could as it is a main tenet of their religion. Since excess boys are not needed in this system they are sort of just abandoned. It's a pretty sad story. They don't have a real education, just a religious one, and have little knowledge of the outside world. Some fall into drugs and prostitution.