LA Times Exposes Weenie Rat Face’s Hole…
In a VERY eye-opening piece, especially for those not familiar with the nefarious doings of the FLDS sect, the Los Angeles Times hits hard at government and the general LACK OF anything resembling police action as Warren Jeffs and his predecessors rained down years of abuse on their loyal followers.
Here is the opening paragraph.
COLORADO CITY, Ariz. — For half a century, while polygamous members of this remote enclave engaged in widespread sexual abuse and child exploitation, government authorities on all levels did little to intervene or protect generations of victims.
It would be hard to say it better than that!
May 12th, 2006 at 10:07 pm
can we say Good Ol’ Boys Club?
May 13th, 2006 at 6:39 am
From the piece, waaaaaay down:
“The (Mormon) church has weighed in on gay marriage, the Equal Rights Amendment and the flat tax. It even put out a statement on the HBO fictional polygamy series, “Big Love,” but has remained mostly silent on issues relating to the FLDS and real polygamy, except to say it is forbidden for Mormons.
And the church, whose missionaries can be found in nearly every corner of the globe, draws the line at sending them to Colorado City or Hildale due to “security concerns.” (…)”The apathy is driven by the fact that many in Utah and Arizona are descendants of polygamists. They think polygamy might come back, so they don’t want to crack down on it.”"
There’s nothing left to say.
May 13th, 2006 at 11:13 am
As far as the silence from Salt Lake on the situation with the FLDS, my view is that they don’t want to make any sort of pronouncement limiting what a religion may practice because they are afraid it will turn around and bite them in the butt concerning some of their own practices (oh, let’s say, bishop interviews with underage individuals where parents are not allowed to be present and questions about the interviewee’s sexuality might be asked, as just one example). They don’t want to criticize because they don’t want to be criticized. I personally don’t see the practice of polygamy (in this life *mumbleD&C132mumble*) coming back in the Salt Lake church, so I don’t think that’s why they don’t want to criticize the FLDS. I do think they are sensitive to First Amendment free exercise clause issues. But, as I said in my blog post about Jeffs making the FBI’s top ten list:
“I think the real point here is that just because someone cites a religious belief for something, that does not mean that it should be tolerated if it otherwise violates laws such as those protecting children from abuse. I’m a big fan of the First Amendment, but I don’t think anyone ever intended the free exercise clause to protect people who marry off 12 year old girls to men sometimes in their 40s, 50s, and 60s. And I don’t think it was meant protect people who kick teenage boys out of their own homes, ostensibly for things like watching television or talking to girls, because those boys constitute a threat to the older men who want to accumulate a collection of young wives.”
After all, when the FLDS were raided in the late 50s/early 60s, no one ultimately got into much trouble and the law enforcement agencies that carried out the raids ended up getting a lot of bad publicity for bothering those “poor people” who were “just trying to practice their religion”. I imagine that those folks in the COB in Salt Lake are not interested in being accused of trying to deny another church the right to practice their religion as they see fit.
But that’s just my two cents’ worth.
May 13th, 2006 at 12:54 pm
Elaine,
Your comments make a lot of sense. And I know that is why the Church will not address the problem of the FLDS sect, except to say, “They are NOT Mormons.” But yes, they are. They are following the Church the way JOSEPH SMITH himself taught it. And that cannot be denied.
May 13th, 2006 at 3:46 pm
Personally, I suspect that the LDS Church wants to use the FBI to help rid itself of a troublesome cult leader but will eventually use the hunt for Warren Jeffs to build on the “Mormons-are-a-persecuted-peoples” myth that the LDS Church works so diligently to cultivate.
BTW, I find the similarities between the persecution of Warren Jeffs and the persecution of Joseph Smith very interesting. When you do a line by line comparison between Smith and Jeffs, it seems that the folks in Illinois had a strong case against Smiths than Utah has against Jeffs.