The term and description of “national polygamy” emerged in the early 2000s.  In those times, the media coverage of polygamy  was terrifyingly limited to criminals and cults, with coverage mostly centered around the geography of Utah/Arizona (where sects of various Mormon-based polygamists lived in collective communities).

Throughout the rest of the United States, normal unrelated consenting adult polygamists (UCAPs) adamantly opposed such criminals and cults too.   They also were not based on any of the Mormon doctrines or paradigms.  But being lumped together (by the media) with such criminals and cults, no one else felt safe enough to dare to stand up in the national media to proclaim that UCAPs were indeed very much against such criminals and cults too.

The founder of the TruthBearer.org organization, Mark Henkel, was willing to do so – to proactively educate the media.  His direct purpose sought to differentiate UCAPs nationwide from that which the media was otherwise reporting.

As the UCAP movement was indeed national and not just limited to any single geography, the term, “national polygamy,” emerged as the clear differentiation. In media interviews, Mark Henkel repeatedly explained the difference between that which the media was reporting from the “Mormonland bubble” versus the rest of the nation where genuinely normal, unrelated consenting adult polygamists (UCAPs) quietly live their lives within mainstream America.

That term thereby paved the way for the media to eventually begin reporting in ways that showed that “all polygamy” is not always based either on criminals and cults or from the “Mormonland bubble.”

Thereby, Mark Henkel became the National Polygamy Advocate ™, paving the way for more and more UCAPs around the country to be freer and safer to publicly stand up as part of the National Polygamy Rights Movement for Consenting Adults.