UEP Priesthood Control over Families and Property

UEP Priesthood Control over Families and Property was a governing principle of the United Effort Plan community: the priesthood claimed authority not only over religious life but over family relationships and the land on which members lived. In Colorado City, that authority could determine whom a person married, where children belonged, and whether a former believer could remain in a home he had paid for. The principle depended on the claim that priesthood leaders spoke for God, but its exercise also exposed conflicts between religious authority, personal loyalty, and state law.

Authority and doctrine

In the Latter-day Saint tradition described in the book, the tension between personal revelation and centralized authority was present from the beginning. Joseph Smith initially encouraged members to seek guidance directly from God, then declared that no one but him could receive commandments for the church. Personal revelation remained compelling to believers, however, and competing claims to divine authority helped generate new religious sects. The UEP communities in Colorado City and Creston were among the results of that continuing struggle over who could speak for God and direct the faithful.

Within the UEP, the claim of authority had practical consequences. Rulon Jeffs, the community’s prophet, was reported to have married about seventy-five women and fathered at least sixty-five children. His sermons emphasized submission and obedience. In this structure, marriage and parenthood were not treated solely as private bonds between adults and children: the priesthood asserted the right to direct them as part of its religious jurisdiction.

Marriage and family under priesthood authority

The community’s marriage practices could create large, overlapping households. Debbie Palmer was fourteen when she believed she had received a divine impression to marry Ray Blackmore, a Bountiful leader. Her father presented the matter to LeRoy Johnson, who approved the match; the following year, Johnson married Debbie to Blackmore, then fifty-seven. She became his sixth wife and a stepmother to his thirty-one children, most of whom were older than she was. Because Blackmore was also the father of her stepmother, the marriage made Debbie a stepmother to her own stepmother and, in effect, her own step-grandmother.

The authority to determine marriages and household membership also shaped Alaire Blackmore’s life. Adopted by Ray Blackmore as a baby, she was married to him at eighteen. She was both Debbie’s stepdaughter and co-wife. After Ray died, Alaire was married to Debbie’s father; when Winston Blackmore took power in Bountiful, she was transferred from that household and married to Winston, her adoptive brother. The resulting kinship ties show how priesthood-directed marriages could reorder family roles across generations, rather than simply add another spouse to a household.

State law and religious marriage did not coincide. Polygamy was illegal in Utah and Arizona, so men in Colorado City typically legally married only their first wife. Later wives were spiritually married by Rulon Jeffs but remained unmarried in the eyes of the state. That arrangement also allowed large families to qualify for public assistance. The community’s rejection of the governments around it therefore coexisted with substantial public support: Colorado City’s residents received more than six million dollars a year in government funds, according to the account.

Enforcement and the limits of control

The doctrine became especially visible when DeLoy Bateman decided to leave the Work. After confronting Rulon Jeffs and concluding that the prophet’s accusation against him was false, DeLoy stopped attending the weekly priesthood meeting. Within twenty-four hours, Rulon sent someone to take DeLoy’s wives and children away. Under UEP dogma, wives did not belong to their husbands and children did not belong to their parents; the priesthood claimed them as its property and could reassign them to a man it considered more worthy.

The order did not succeed. Both of DeLoy’s wives refused to leave him. Their decision defied the hierarchy’s claim that priesthood loyalty came before family allegiance, and the wives and all but DeLoy’s three oldest children were treated as apostates. The episode makes the rule’s power—and its limits—plain: leaders could issue commands about a household, but family members could refuse them, at the cost of being cast outside the faithful community.

The community’s response to apostasy extended beyond family relations. Relatives who remained in the religion were forbidden to speak to DeLoy, his wives, or their apostate children. Although DeLoy had built and paid for his house, the UEP owned the land within Colorado City’s limits, including the lot beneath it. Rulon Jeffs and the UEP brought legal action to take possession of the house and sought to evict DeLoy from the city. In this case, the authority to govern family life was reinforced by control of property: leaving the faith could mean separation from relatives as well as the loss of one’s home.

Succession, schism, and the reach of the principle

Priesthood authority was powerful but not uncontested. When LeRoy Johnson died in 1986, Rulon Jeffs succeeded him, but supporters of Bishop Marion Hammon disputed Rulon’s right to lead. Nearly a third of the community left and formed a separate congregation, later known as the Second Ward. The rival groups denounced one another as apostates, demonstrating that the same claims of religious legitimacy used to direct households could also divide a community.

After Rulon Jeffs died, his son Warren Jeffs moved quickly to take control of the First Ward; he had already been running its affairs while his father was ill. This succession placed the family and property system under a new leader, but the account notes that Warren did not receive the affection accorded to Rulon or LeRoy. The history of contested succession underscores that control over families and property depended on recognition of the prophet’s authority, and that recognition could fracture even within the movement.

Significance

UEP Priesthood Control over Families and Property joined religious obedience to material governance. Spiritual marriage could define a household while state law treated some wives as single; the priesthood could claim children and order their reassignment; and the UEP’s ownership of land gave it leverage over where members could live. DeLoy Bateman’s case exposes the central conflict: the community asserted that family bonds were subordinate to priesthood command, but his wives’ refusal showed that those bonds could also become the means of resisting it.