Brady Williams and his five wives and 24 children, who range in age from 2-20, will star in their own polygamy show on TLC. Their pilot drew decent ratings in September, and now TLC will produce nine one-hour episodes to start airing in March.
On December 13, US District Judge Clark Waddoups ruled Utah’s law banning polygamy was unconstitutional and only made bigamy, holding a marriage license with multiple partners, illegal. Congress forced Utah to ban polygamy before they became a state in 1896. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints disavowed polygamy in 1890.
Williams and his wives do not belong to the Mormon church and left the Apostolic United Brethren in the mid-2000s. They teach their children about other faiths, like Buddhism, at home.
Kody Brown and his four wives, the stars of Sister Wives on TLC, filed the lawsuit in July 2011 and had to move to Las Vegas after they were threatened with prosecution in Utah.
Williams said now is the time for polygamists to demand respect from others while denouncing those who take child brides. Warren Jeffs is serving a life sentence for sexually assaulting two minor girls he called his wives.
Women are not a commodity and they shouldn’t be treated as such,’ said Williams, 43, a project manager in his brother’s construction business. ‘There needs to be complete symmetry within a marriage.’
‘We need to call it for what it is: evil,’ Williams said.
TLC aired a special on the Darger family in Utah and HBO ran the show Big Love for five seasons, which was produced by Tom Hanks.