Court TV Host: As we await the verdict in the trial of polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs, chat with national polygamy advocate, Mark Henkel, founder of TruthBearer.org.

Court TV Host: You might want to look at his website, which is www.truthbearer.org/

Court TV Host: You might also have seen him on Court TV over the past weeks...so we're very pleased that he's joining us here online to answer your questions about polygamy and the Jeffs trial.

Court TV Host: Welcome, Mark Henkel, thanks for being our guest today.

Mark Henkel: Thank you for having me on your chat. I appreciate the introduction. Thank you. Technically, Jeffs is only the leader of a Utah-local MORMON polygamy sect. Jeffs is not a leader of polygamy in general - and certainly NOT a leader of anything in the polygamy rights movement. He is only the leader of his own specific MORMON-based sect that includes polygamy in its paradigm.

Question from tara: Mark Henkel, what are your thoughts on Mr. Jeffs at this time?

Mark Henkel: Thanks for asking. To connect Jeffs to all polygamists around the country is as slanderous and as offensive as connecting all teachers to Mary Kay Letourneau.

Question from Scotty: Hello, Mark, correct me if I am wrong, but isn't having multiple sexual partners prohibited by the teachings of the Hebrew or Christian scriptures?

Mark Henkel: Actually, that is not correct. One man, one woman was only invented by the Catholic institution. For arguments in the Bible, see www.BiblicalPolygamy.com

Question from eowyn: Mark, do you support women having more then one husband or is this only in terms of men having many wives?

Question from Kath: Do you advocate women having plural husbands? One wife, many men.

Mark Henkel: Politically, we are only after the conservative, limited government position of de-criminalization. Government has no authority to define what consenting adults choose to do with their associations. So, politically, it does not matter what think, because government has no authority either way. As an evangelical Christian, though, the Bible does not support such a concept. But politically, it doesn't matter what I believe religiously in this regard.

Question from eowyn: Why are girls that are so young married off into families? Why not wait until they are legal age?

Question from DevilsAdvocate: Mark - do you also believe that at 14-year-old women are old enough to marry?

Mark Henkel: Jeffs and the FLDS do NOT represent polygamy or pro-polygamists around the country. Just because the FLDS involve underage girls, that does NOT mean the rest of normal pro-polygamists outside of the "Mormonland bubble" of Utah/Arizona would ever condone such things. So, the idea of girls being married off young... is ONLY representative of the FLDS and other specific MORMON polygamy sects. Christian polygamists, secular polygamists, etc. do NOT support underage marriage.

Question from Kath: Don't Mormans still embrace polygamy in their religion in the concept of celestial marriage?

Mark Henkel: MORMON Polygamy is based on doctrines created by the MORMON religion - but others embrace polygamy for completely non-MORMON reasons. FLDS is simply the original LDS except that the LDS rejected what their religion created for doctrines. Celestial marriage is more than only polygamy, it is a MORMON-only doctrine that LDS believe while contradicting their belief by rejecting polygamy around it. But it is NOT polygamy itself.

Question from kiara: The most glaring problem I see with polygamy is the inferior status women have in the relationship. Please comment on this aspect.

Mark Henkel: That is a false stereotype because the media refuses to allow us to tell our story unless some CRIMINAL has done SOMETHING ELSE while involving polygamy somehow. The fact is, around the country consenting-adult polygamy empowers women to have a choice. That means that a working woman can choose to work while another woman can choose to be a stay-at-home mom, rather than shipping kids off to low-paid strangers. Two smart women can certainly keep a man from infringing their rights. And In this era of "dumbed down males," we have a wasteland of abandoned single moms with a society of marriage-phobic males and playa/baby-daddies. All of the good men are taken should no longer apply - and then women can REALLY choose.

Question from tara: Mark Henkel, the question is, do these women get to 'pick' whom they want to marry?

Mark Henkel: Consenting adults choose what consenting adults choose to do. Polygamy is about marriage. Marriage is intimacy on so many levels - intellectual, emotional, psychological, spiritual and more. To bring another wife into a family where an existing wife does not embrace it too is simply not possible because it is an utter break from that intimacy if she is not wanting it too. By wanting it, I mean as a family, not "physically" or other fleshly ideas, etc.

Question from eowyn: Mark, were you brought up in a polygamist family? Did you have many mothers?

Question from tara: How many wives and children do you yourself have?

Question from Gracie: Mark Henkel, What is your own personal experience with polygamy; how many wives do you have?

Mark Henkel: I had only one mother, and none of my family came from anything involving polygamy. I do not answer questions about my own family. As a national polygamy advocate, I am already so public that it places my family in jeopardy because the media always show polygamy ONLY when a criminal is involved, but they never let our movement be heard or reported otherwise. So, the media is complicit in endangering our lives by always suggesting that being polygamist means we are connected to the criminals whom we also oppose.

Question from eowyn: If they are going to have more then one wife shouldn't these men have the funds and income to support them?

Mark Henkel: I reject that idea as an anti-woman notion that women can only be through of as wanting or needing a sugar daddy. The fact is, women are every bit as intelligent and capable of doing things. I respect women more than that question seems to. I oppose welfare ideas, and the lie that polygamists go on welfare is a lie indeed. While a MORMON polygamy sect may have exploited welfare, I reject that entirely

Question from chris: Can you explain what your organization is specifically about?

Mark Henkel: The TruthBearer.org organization is able to do what no one else has been able to do before. Because we are conservative evangelical Christians, "Bringing Christian Polygamy TO the Churches," we cannot be dismissed from debates as Mormon, Muslim, liberal, lascivious, or anti-woman. As this new movement of CHRISTIAN Polygamy exploded in the 90s (made possible because of the new thing called the internet), we have the credibility that answers all the arguments that Christian and Conservatives typically use when trying to oppose polygamy. We show them the Bible NEVER created anti-polygamy and the true conservative position of limited government requires conservatives to keep government out of defining what God created, marriage. So, all other forms, secular polygamy, Jewish polygamy, and others, recognize that only WE can answer the arguments and get polygamy rights for all consenting adults.

Question from Kath: If government doesn't have authority, do you promote same sex marriages, as marriages in the eyes of your god?

Court TV Host: I think what Kath is asking is: if you want the government to get out of regulating marriage, should they do the same for same-sex marriages?

Mark Henkel: Anti-polygamy is the real slippery slope that led to the legal invention of the biological impossibility of same sex marriage. If government had not been involved in re-defining God's doctrine of marriage (and the 10th Amendment prohibits government from doing that anyway), then homosexuals would never have had a reason to pursue the legal invention in the first place. As well, all citizens have the right to imagine whatever they want to imagine. People have the right to an imagination that there are seven moons even though it is impossible in reality. So, homosexuals have the right to an imagination that they are married even though the impossibility of coitus makes marriage truly impossible. So, again, my position of limited government means it doesn't matter because government has no authority defining marriage one way or the other

Question from Gracie: Mark_Henkel, What percentage of children have physical or mental problems because of all the in-breeding?

Mark Henkel: Again, that notion is only based on specific isolated MORMON polygamy sects. Around the country, most of us live as our own families in the cities and suburbs. So the idea of inbreeding is actually a fallacious stereotype that has no connection to us.

Question from SUNNIE2DAY: Won't polygamy leave some men wifeless?

Mark Henkel: Not at all. Just because everyone has the freedom to earn $500 million dollars, it doesn't mean every one is going to. After all, are all women across America immediately going to embrace polygamy? I think we know that's hardly likely. The reality is marital laissez faire economics. As Dr. Joyce Brothers said, "I'd rather be third in line of a good man, than the only wife of a jerk." The incentive of women no longer having to settle for jerks and marriage-phobic males, now they have a wider of choice of marriage-PROVEN men. And that would motivate the jerk-men to grow up if they want a chance with a women. Then equilibrium would occur anyway

Court TV Host: Any closing thoughts?

Mark Henkel: Sure. We are only about what CONSENTING ADULTS choose to do, without any coercive pressure or doctrines obligating those choices. The Bible NEVER created anti-polygamy doctrine. Adam & Eve and the "one flesh" passage were authored by Moses - who had TWO wives to whom he was one flesh with each. When we persuade our fellow conservatives of this reality and true limited government, that "first floor of the house of cards of anti-polygamy thinking" comes crashing down. Then, other floors easily come down. The "floor" of liberals have to accept consenting-adult polygamy because their "tolerance" dogma requires liberals to tolerate what uncoerced adults choose to do. The "floor" of feminists comes crashing down because this is about women's CHOICE if that is what they CHOOSE. The cultural conservative "floor" comes crashing down because this provides a solution that helps hamster-in-a-wheel abandoned single moms have a new option rather than working to pay for daycare or get welfare. So, we are working to bring the "house of cards" of anti-polygamy thinking to come crashing down, but bringing down the first floor - persuading our fellow conservative Christians. And so, we are "Continuing the Reformation" by bringing Christian Polygamy to the churches, and bringing about polygamy rights for all uncoerced consenting adults.

Court TV Host: Thank you, Mark Henkel, for being our guest online today!