CEDAR CITY — The popular Feminist Mormon Housewives podcast, by host and founder Lindsay Hansen-Park, released an episode in their “Year of Polygamy” series Tuesday featuring Cedar City Attorney Nadine Hansen.

“I love Lindsay’s podcasts and it was a privilege to be on it,” Nadine Hansen said.

In episode 85, titled Warren Jeffs and His Crimes, Nadine Hansen describes Jeffs, who was convicted of two felony counts of child sexual assault in 2011 and is currently serving a prison sentence of life plus 20 years. She describes how his arrest came about, what happened during his trial and Jeffs’ influence over his congregation from prison, among other things occurring in the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saint community.

Nadine Hansen serves as a guardian ad litem for children in custody disputes including children of the FLDS who have been alienated from parents after they were excommunicated by sect leaders.

A searing part of the episode is where Nadine Hansen describes the recording that was played in the trial of Jeffs as he rapes a 12-year-old girl.

“I didn’t really hold anything back, but I tried to be careful in the words I used to describe Warren’s recorded rape,” Nadine Hansen said. “I was aware that talking about it is triggering for sexual abuse survivors. And I didn’t say her name, even though it is widely available on the internet.”

“Interviewing Nadine was great,” Hansen-Park said of her interview with Nadine Hansen. “She’s been a friend for a long time and is doing incredible work as an advocate for children.”

The Feminist Mormon Housewives, referred to as FMH, has received national recognition and has been discussed by the New York Times, Newsweek, Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News, among other publications.

The Year of Polygamy series has reached over 600,000 downloads alone and is starting to average about 50,000 downloads a month, Hansen-Park said.

“FMH has been a bright spot that readers could turn to when they felt alone in their local wards,” according to the Year of Polygamy website. “Over the course of 75 episodes (Hansen-Park) takes research hidden away in archives, brushed aside by religious authorities, left out of official histories, written professionally in abstracts and journals, and compiles it all in a narrative respected by leading historians and compelling enough to interest any casual listener.”

According to the site, the Year of Polygamy series discusses polygamy and shows how it was started in secret — a cause of Joseph Smith’s death; a factor in much persecution of the saints and violence including the Mountain Meadow Massacre; and responsible for driving the saints to Utah, then Mexico and Canada.

“For the first time, The Year of Polygamy shows how the west was settled not only to claim land and mineral rights, but in a very real way to control the bodies and sexuality of women in a way that reverberates today,” the website said.

Resources

Year of Polygamy website

Feminist Mormon Housewives website | Facebook | Twitter

Related posts

Email: nbarrett@stgnews.com

Twitter: @STGnews

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2015, all rights reserved.