… and he’s not a polygamist. That’s big news for residents of Colorado City, Arizona and Hildale, Utah, the polygamist enclaves that straddle the Utah-Arizona border. The Arizona Republic reports that the now ex-town marshal admits to having 21 kids by his wife and two “companions.” The ex-marshall is quoted in the article as saying he just didn’t know he was supposed to report any of the 20 to 25 child abuse cases he was investigating “to the Utah Division of Child and Family Services, as required by law.”

This is all part of a government crackdown on the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (not to be confused with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the one with a hyphen and a small d). The article notes that “[m]embers of the FLDS believe that three wives are a requirement to reach the highest level of the ‘Celestial Kingdom,’ or heaven.” I’m not familiar with the FLDS doctrine of celestial trigamy, but it seems a little unfair to the diligent bigamists who have made a good-faith attempt to attain trigamy but fallen short by one wife.