Posted 8/24/2004 05:37:00 PM by Douglas

This one's just weird. Polygamist Mormons moving in to a small town in West Texas. Something tells me this one's not going to have a happy ending.

Accustomed to gabbing about the local Eagles football team over the back fences this time of year, the townsfolk of Eldorado are suddenly the state's armchair experts on fringe religions, moral relativism and separation of church and state.

The local library hasn't been able to keep up with requests for books about Mormonism after the breakaway group, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, took up residence on the former game ranch north of Eldorado.

Hold the phone, Thelma, most folks don't like strangers movin' to town and telling them what it takes to get to heaven. Uh, what do they think it takes to get to heaven?

• The church leader is a prophet chosen by God through revelation.
• Men must have at least three wives to get to the celestial kingdom, heaven's highest plane. Marriages are arranged by revelation from the prophet.
• Women go to heaven only if their husbands take them.
• People who leave the church, "apostates," will be more damned than those who chose not to follow the religion.

Can't we all just get along?