National Polygamy Advocate

National Polygamy Advocate ™ Mark Henkel persistently sought for the Opinion Page Editor John Porter to publish an article in the Portland Press Herald, starting on February 11, 2009.  The Maine newspaper had, 2 years previously, reported about Mark Henkel.  Later that coming Spring of 2009, the Maine State Legislature was preparing to make a law to make Maine the 5th State to legalize same sex marriage.  Mark Henkel was seeking to show a "third way," the Polygamy Rights Win-Win Solution to end the marriage debate.  Mark Henkel had first spoken with the newspaper's "Maine Voices" Editor Michael (M.D.) Harmon who had passed it off with a recommendation that Mark Henkel instead pursue the matter with his next-up-the-line editor, John Porter.  John Porter sounded like he would consider a 700-word op-ed instead.   He said that he did not think that polygamy was somehow "relevant" or even "controversial" to be part of the debate (revealing how the Manufactured News Corporations do not really allow full debate or anyone to be heard on issues they control).  But John Porter did say that he would "shop it around" (even to his own boss) when Mark Henkel would later send the article to him. Mark Henkel called back a few times in April, 2009, even on the day before his live appearance at the Maine Public Hearing for the pending same sex marriage law on April 22,2009.  By April 28, 2009, it seemed possible that the newspaper would finally publish it. (On a side note, later that year, 2009, when the newspaper was bought, placing it under new ownership, John Porter would be removed from his top-dog newspaper editorship to instead go work as a spokesman for a local internet company.  In that following Fall of 2009, the opponents of the newly-passed same sex marriage law were gearing up for a statewide referendum to repeal it with a "People's Veto."  Mark Henkel would continue to reach out to the Portland Press Herald and its new top-dog editor to publish this timely relevant article.  The "People's Veto" subsequently passed, which in turn, repealed the then-new-but-thereafter-repealed same sex marriage law in Maine.  On June 26, 2015, the US Supreme Court Decision, Obergefell v. Hodges, determined that same sex marriage was thereafter to be legalized in all 50 States. ) In the end, the Portland Press Herald still chose to hide the article from their readership, which instead was later published in a different newspaper in Portland.

http://www.NationalPolygamyAdvocate.com

National Polygamy Advocate ™ Mark Henkel persistently sought for Jennifer Dobner to make a regular clarification for articles in the Associated Press (the AP newswire), reaching her on September 8, 2006.  --Part 2 of 2.-- One week previously, the fugitive on the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted List,  the cult leader of FLDS, Fundamentalist LDS, Warren Jeffs, had been caught and arrested.  For that week, Mark Henkel persisted for Jennifer Dobner to include a clarifying statement that the national polygamy rights movement for unrelated consenting adults has always opposed that cult leader and criminal, were glad that he was caught, and both loathe and do not participate in those crimes.  This is Part 2 of 2 recordings that show how Mark Henkel was able to begin getting this essential clarification made.  The reporter said, "The New York Editors don't care." Mark Henkel said that it was looking like "the AP is not Associated Press but is the Associated Propaganda." He also used the comparative metaphor of a media in the 1950s and 1960s reporting on some singularly local gang of African American men "raping a white girl" but refusing to clarify in their news reports about it, making it look like all African American men do that, and when national-level leader Martin Luther King Jr.  repeatedly asked the media to clarify that the violent gang of criminals are adamantly opposed by everyday normal African Americans too, the media refused to do so.  He explained that that is what the manufactured news outlets are doing to polygamists with this story by not adding Mark Henkel's clarification.  The reporter said that she had understood and she positively worked for a way to include a clarification.  Subsequently, when she was finally able to get the beginning of such clarification past her editors, Mark Henkel followed up with a call left as a voicemail to thank her and keep it progressing - which is included at the end of this audio.

http://www.NationalPolygamyAdvocate.com

National Polygamy Advocate ™ Mark Henkel persistently sought for Jennifer Dobner to make a regular clarification for articles in the Associated Press (the AP newswire), on September 6 and 7, 2006.  --Part 1 of 2.-- One week previously, the fugitive on the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted List,  the cult leader of FLDS, Fundamentalist LDS, Warren Jeffs, had been caught and arrested.  For the following week, Mark Henkel persisted for Jennifer Dobner to include a clarifying statement that the national polygamy rights movement for unrelated consenting adults has always opposed that cult leader and criminal, were glad that he was caught, and both loathe and do not participate in those crimes.  This is Part 1 of 2 recordings that show how much effort Mark Henkel made in trying to get this essential clarification made in future AP articles.  (Part 2, which will begin at the subsequent phone conversation made on the following morning of September 8, 2006, will be posted next week.)  In this recording of Part 1, the frustrated reporter even explained that she could not promise that her work-superiors would let such clarifications through, even if she could get them into her articles.  She even declared, "My bosses don't care" (about such things).

http://www.NationalPolygamyAdvocate.com

National Polygamy Advocate ™ Mark Henkel was interviewed for Chatelaine, leading Canadian women's magazine from Toronto, Ontario, on October 17, 2007.   Having seen a then-recent article about Mark Henkel in another Canadian magazine (MacLean's), the writer Chris Dafoss (correct spelling not known) wanted to do an article (due to be published in the following Spring) from the angle of polygamy's growing acceptance.  Mark Henkel differentiated the Mormon-based group in Bountiful, Canada, from other forms of polygamy, such as Christian polygamy and Secular polygamy.  When the writer first guessed that Christian polygamy was "Old Testament based,"  Mark Henkel provided the clarity to her that that was definitely not the case, that Christian polygamy is "New Covenant based Christianity" based on all the Bible.  This 50-minute interview is a comprehensive interview, providing several answers to many frequently asked questions about polygamy.

http://www.NationalPolygamyAdvocate.com

National Polygamy Advocate ™ Mark Henkel gave a statement to Jennifer Dobner for the Associated Press (the AP newswire), on August 31, 2006.  Two days earlier, the fugitive on the FBI's Top Ten Most Wanted List,  the cult leader of FLDS, Fundamentalist LDS, Warren Jeffs, had been caught and arrested.  As both the FBI listing and the reports from most of the news organizations associated that cult criminal with polygamy,  the TruthBearer.org organization (founded by Henkel) issued a press release, distributed that same day (August 29, 2006) to the media through Pro-Polygamy.com, explaining, "Pro-Polygamists Glad that Fugitive Warren Jeffs was Caught."  Mark Henkel kept phonecalling the AP over those next two days to reach Jennifer Dobner.  He made sure that she would get the statement.   Jennifer Dobner confirmed that she should be able to use it in order to report the differentiation that Unrelated Consenting Adult Polygamy, UCAP, is not the same as the FLDS or (eventually convicted) criminal Warren Jeffs - and especially that normal pro-polygamists were even glad that the criminal was finally caught.

http://www.NationalPolygamyAdvocate.com

National Polygamy Advocate ™ Mark Henkel was interviewed on "Hogue in the Morning" on AM1380 KTKZ, in Sacramento, California, of the Salem Radio Network, on April 4, 2006.  After the premiere of HBO's then-new fictional TV show, "Big Love," this consvertive radio show made a media request to discuss polygamy on air, live.  After Mark Henkel's repeated attempts to reach them by telephone (despite the fact the the show was the originator of the media request), and being told that they were out of time more than once while the producer kept the pre-interview calls going long, etc., Mark Henkel became aware during the 2 pre-interview phonecalls that the show could be more hostile than they were sounding.  After Mark Henkel declared that he was not interested in doing that kind of interview, producer Matt Bisiaux  assured him, "We are not going to sandbag you, we're not going to namecall you. We're not that kind of show."  He explained that the host was a Christian himself and that both the show and the network were mostly Christian too. The actual on-air-interview begins after 32 minutes into this recording., and it proved that Mark Henkel's awareness was correct.  The host , Eric Hogue, immediately began as sarcastic and clearly went on the attack from the beginning, putting words into Mark Henkel's mouth which the latter vehemently denied but corrected.  As Mark Henkel would try to answer questions, the host repeatedly cut him off and re-worded what he said with self-evident falsehoods.  At one point, Mark Henkel used a positive statement with which any serious Christian would be familiar, saying to host Eric Hogue, "In the name of Jesus Christ, is this man willing to listen? Are you willing to listen?" The host, betraying his claim of being Christian, then exlaimed back, "Wow! Did you just put a hex on me?" (Actual Bible-studying Christians immediately recognize what that exchange reveals, as no Christian would think that that was hex! God forbid.)  By the end, the host's hostile fighting descended into his outrageous and invented idea that supposedly husbands would ever somehow be "disciplining" their wives.  Mark Henkel responded to this offensive suggestion with the powerful concluding soundbite, "You're thinking from the gutter instead of listening to maturity." 

http://www.NationalPolygamyAdvocate.com

National Polygamy Advocate ™ Mark Henkel was interviewed by Jennifer Dobner for the Associated Press (the AP newswire), on July 26, 2006.  This brief discussion focused on the media problem within the "Mormonland Bubble of Utah/Arizona," and how AP articles (which covers a much larger audience than that local area) were still not making the necessary descriptive differentiations to accurately clarify and disassociate criminals such as the FLDS as not the same thing as normal Unrelated Consenting Adult Polygamy (UCAP) families. The writer even acknowledged, "You make a good point - that I could be adding this other stuff,"  and later confirmed, "I don't necessarily disagree with you."

http://www.NationalPolygamyAdvocate.com

National Polygamy Advocate ™ Mark Henkel was interviewed on Bards Logic Political Talk, a 3-hour show hosted by Robert Jetter Jr., with a round-table of the show's additional Conservative and Christian co-panelists, on October 24, 2019.  This was a comprehensive interview that covered so many different issues pertaining to UCAP, Unrelated Consenting Adult Polygamy.  During this interview, Mark Henkel first came up with the "No dog in the fight" soundbite as well as first mentioned his observation of what he calls, "#ImposerVsImposer politics" - by which an Imposer always wins no matter which "side" gets elected, all while leaders of both "sides" keep us all divided into tribalism fighting each other.  At one point, one of the specially invited co-panelists, a doctor, began arguing with Mark Henkel about Biblical Polygamy.   At 2 hours and 30 minutes into the interview, the host briefly went into other unconnected political topics, but he brought Mark Henkel back for concluding comments at 2 hours and 48 minutes. "We're just asking for freedom. We're not asking to impose on you. We're not even asking for legalization."  The woman co-panelist concluded, asking if Mark Henkel would be willing to later be a guest on her own show too (to which Henkel positively said, "Yes").  The host concluded, asked Mark Henkel to keep him and the show updated into the future.

http://www.NationalPolygamyAdvocate.com

National Polygamy Advocate ™ Mark Henkel was interviewed by Jeff Inglis, the Managing Editor for The Portland Phoenix newspaper, in Portland, Maine, on  October 29, 2009.   This interview occurred during the week before a mid-term election, in which voters in the State of Maine would be voting on a "People's Veto" to repeal the then-recently-passed new same sex marriage law. (It was repealed on November 3, 2009.  Even so, same sex marriage later became legalized "again" in Maine by the nationwide US Supreme Court decision of Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015).  For all of this, Mark Henkel had written an op-ed about how the law was neither about "Marriage Protection" nor about "Marriage Equality," and he was waiting for whether the statewide daily newspaper (Portland Press Herald / Mane Voices) would carry it.  If not, this could be an opportunity for the weekly newspaper, The Portland Phoenix,  to show "the article that the Press Herald was too afaid to publish."   The Managing Editor loved this idea.  This interview with him had many good soundbites, including how the law being voted on was supposed to be all about, "equality for all, equality for all, equality for all - except unrelated consenting adult polygamists."   Commenting about the public debate which had aired on local television the night before about the pending "People's Veto" vote, in which the side opposing the repeal (i.e., being for same sex marriage) actually used terms of cruel bigotry when addressing the polygamy question, Mark Henkel explained that the debater's defaulting to false stereotypes of polygamy was as bigoted and offensive as saying that "all gay men want sex with boys."  Mark Henkel re-iterated that the "Polygamy Rights Win-Win Solution" to end the marriage debate is "the intellectual solution to end this war" for all sides and stakeholders.  Agreeing to speak again two weeks later, the Manageing Editor ended with the following request regarding the status of Mark Henkel's still-unpublished op-ed, "Keep me posted on the thing with the Press Herald. I love that stuff. Let's see how the election goes."

http://www.NationalPolygamyAdvocate.com

National Polygamy Advocate ™ Mark Henkel was interviewed by Jennifer Dobner for the Associated Press (the AP newswire), on June 29, 2006.   The discussion involved the breaking news that a Utah group of anti-polygamists called "Tapestry Against Polygamy" had got into trouble with their non-profit status and failing to report all of their donations.  This interview includes Mark Henkel's "using a bandaid with a chainsaw" soundbite to describe the tactics of that small Utah-local anti-polygamist group of hurting former members of specific Mormon-based cults.  Mark Henkel noted how that local group had, years previously, refused his (non-Mormon) organization's offer to help, and the group instead insisted on choosing the propaganda route of smearing all polygamists by their singular anecdotes of tragic experiences in local Mormon cults.  Mark Henkel noted that, by their propaganda-logic then, "if they live by the sword, die by the sword" of their over-generalization approach to propaganda - their flawed logic which he said more than once, "is, of course, absurd."

http://www.NationalPolygamyAdvocate.com