TheSister Wivesmay have once called Utah home, but it’s no longer where the heart is.
Joe Darger and his three wives — Alina and real-life sisters Valerie and Vicky — had “been very politically active for the cause of decriminalizing plural marriage in Utah,” Kody, 52, explained to viewers. (Kody and his wives have acombined 18 children.)
But although they were looking forward to seeing the close family friends, going to Utah brought up some uneasy feelings for some of the Brown wives.
At the time, in January 2011, the family was “very afraid that they were going to come and arrest us,” so they left the state “in the dark of night,” Janelle said, adding, “We felt like we’d been exiled.”
The Browns landed inLas Vegas, and after things had settled, they “sued the state of Utah, basically saying, ‘Look, this law is unfair,'” Janelle recounted. “We won, so for a year … we were decriminalized. We’re no longer felons.”
The relief was short-lived, though. “The state of Utah appealed our lawsuit that we had won. They overturned it and then they doubled-down with a new law, HB 99,” which “made it a worse felony for polygamists in Utah,” Kody told cameras.
In 2020, “there was a bill introduced into the Utah senate, S.B. 102. What it was going to do was kind of revise that law that was passed a few years ago,” Janelle said in a confessional. “It basically makes it so that people like our family, who live a law-abiding life but just choose for religious purposes to cohabitate, we’re no longer felons.”
For Kody, “What I do in my bedroom with another consenting adult is nobody’s else’s business,” he said to cameras. “And so why do they think that they can legislate it? It’s naive.”
Brown family.TLC
Before they left for their trip, Kody and the women discussed whether they should all drive together. It was “obvious that we really don’t like being together, the five of us,” Kody said. But while Christine wanted the women to take separate cars, they ultimately traveled together in the same vehicle.
Janelle, for one, had concerns about going back to the state she once called home.
“I think for me, the biggest fear about going back into Utah, if we’re pulled over for a traffic violation, are they going to use it as an opportunity to tack on the felony polygamy charge? Because that’s usually how it works — they get you for something else and then they add it on,” she said. “I’m always like, ‘Don’t speak, Kody, don’t speak.’ It’s dumb, but it is a real fear.”
Janelle Brown on Sister Wives.TLC
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But they arrived safe and sound in Utah. After catching up over a meal with the Dargers, the Browns felt uplifted.
During the families’ time together, they also discussed bill S.B. 102.
“The essential element is it amendsthe bigamy laws right now. In Utah, just to call each other wives, sister wives, is a felony,” Joe told the group. “Now, instead of being a felony to call each other wives, it’s an infraction. It’d be like getting a jaywalking ticket. … Right now it’s a felony — you can go to prison for three to five years for it and then get back and go back in I guess, because you’re still polygamist when you’re done.”
Added Christine to cameras: “Polygamy right now in Utah is a felony. We’re sitting with fellow felons. We’re felons just like them. They could come in and arrest us all.”
Theoretically, “Kody, because he has one legal wife and three plural wives, could go to jail from anywhere from nine to 15 years,” Janelle said. “Then your probation involves not seeing your children, not recommitting the felony, so basically if you saw your children again, then you were violating probation. That took you into the federal system. It’s just a big mess.”
In May 2020, the Browns and Dargers celebrated jointly whena law decriminalizing bigamy in Utahtook effect.
“The Dargers were successful in decriminalizing polygamy in Utah, which was huge,” Janelle previously told PEOPLE ahead of the season 10Sister Wivespremiere.
“That was one of the biggest reasons that we went public in the first place, was to try to make it not so scary to be open about your family,” she added. “That’s the whole point of why we went public, so this is wonderful to have had this happen. It’s a big deal to us.”
Sister Wivesairs Sundays (10 p.m. ET) on TLC.
source: people.com
