Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

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Re: “Suppose your parish was raided at Mass tomorrow and everyone was hauled off and all the kids were put in foster care, because a number of parishoners were welfare cheats, or committed any other crime, used drugs, ran a ring that smuggled immigrants across the border.”

The use of scare tactics is an appeal to emotion. Scare tactics are devices used when an appeal to reason, based on facts, would not produced the desired outcome. It would be refreshing to have a dialog actually based on fact instead of preposterous hypotheticals.
 
MelanieAnne said:
Re: “Suppose your parish was raided at Mass tomorrow and everyone was hauled off and all the kids were put in foster care, because a number of parishoners were welfare cheats, or committed any other crime, used drugs, ran a ring that smuggled immigrants across the border.”

The use of scare tactics is an appeal to emotion. Scare tactics are devices used when an appeal to reason, based on facts, would not produced the desired outcome. It would be refreshing to have a dialog actually based on fact instead of preposterous hypotheticals.
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this example isn’t close to what happened either. only if the parish lived in a commune where the women and children couldn’t leave and the parishioners had committed crimes against the children under the direction of the leadership…THEN we might have something analogous. it seems a legacy of mormonism to want to be an antigovernment survivalist always siding with any church that law enforcement deals with. (except the catholics…mormons seem okay with the catholic church being prosecuted :confused: )
 
Looks like the “shoot first, ask questions later” attitude of the state of Texas has finally caught up with them:

Sweep of Polygamist Sect Kids Raises Legal Questions
foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352682,00.html

I guess the FLDS should be grateful that all the buildings at the Yearning for Zion ranch weren’t filled with flammable tear gas and that they’re still all alive!
 
The FLDS Church is a criminal organization. The forced “spiritual marriage” of unwilling, underage girls to men double or triple their age is common. The indoctrination, and fear of the outside world that the female members of this cult make the charges very difficult to prove.

I suggest anyone on this thread that thinks the feds where “over-reaching” or going beyond their authority read Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer. The author is not a religious person and some of his generalities regarding religious belief are insulting. However he has done extensive research on Mormonism and especially FLDS, and what he’s found is troubling.

The polygamist men in this sect should rightfully all be charged with domestic abuse, child abuse, rape, child rape and never be able to see the people that they’ve done this violence to again.

Most Mormon beliefs are just wacky - polygamy is abusive, incestuous and should be stamped out by the any government concerned for the welfare of their female citizens.
 
The problem with polygamy is that it brings with it a whole bunch of problems:
  1. Out of control male sexuality, and males demanding that women take all the responsibility for sexual self-control
  2. Jealousy
  3. More children and concubines than a man can support
  4. An attitude of subjugation of women, of women as property
  5. Dipping deeper into the female population for concubines, leading to underage marriage.
  6. Lack of legal rights of concubines and thier children.
  7. Negative attitudes of the larger population because polygamy encourages the above abuses.
Simply by the fact that polygamy tends to bring about the above abuses, by natural law alone, polygamy is alien to Christianity.

IMHO
 
rmcmullan said:
Looks like the “shoot first, ask questions later” attitude of the state of Texas has finally caught up with them:

Sweep of Polygamist Sect Kids Raises Legal Questions
foxnews.com/story/0,2933,352682,00.html

I guess the FLDS should be grateful that all the buildings at the Yearning for Zion ranch weren’t filled with flammable tear gas and that they’re still all alive!
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fox “news” will rot your brain, don’t do too muich of it!

even so i read the article, and don’t see how it leads you to believe that the TX authorities shoot first and ask questions later.

and talk about infmlammatory! your last sentence was.

r you r too reasonable a preson to bbe melting down in this way. relax.
 
JC, for some Mormons, this FLDS story may “hit close to home” and may elicit all sorts of defense mechanisms and anxiety. Their doctrine still includes polygamy, and while that is not the central problem in the FLDS situation, it is an element.

In such a state of anxiety many people find that lashing out at others is somehow balancing. It’s not truly effective, but the alternative is to confront the truth. Some people don’t want to do that.
 
**If mcmullin is not FLDS, he may have close ties with people in the FLDS community. Or he may simply be TBM, living for the day when “polygamy is legalized”. Someone is making similar arguments over at exmormon,and claiming to be an exmo. :rolleyes: **
 
fatima1917 said:
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One young mother told investigators that she was 15 when she gave birth to her first child. Texas law prohibits children under 16 from being married.

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But why should mothers be separated from the children they bore ( regardless of who the father is)? this is punishing them for the crimes of the perpetrators…
 
distracted said:
But why should mothers be separated from the children they bore ( regardless of who the father is)? this is punishing them for the crimes of the perpetrators…
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In the case of the FLDS, many of the children cannot identify their own biological mothers. As I was reading about the children’s dispersion among foster homes, it occurred to me that they’ve already been living their entire lives as fosterlings.
 
They aren’t. The young mothers are going to be kept with their children in foster care, according to one source. In fact, more are admitting to being underage, now that they know that.

Yes, it is sad that the whole community has been disrupted because (as some believe) of the crimes of a few. But there is reason to believe that this criminal behavior was widespread. It will all sort out in time.
 
two or three nights ago I caught a peice of a TV program about the FLDs. The mayor of the town, Eldorado, was interviweed. he said that the fldS people who bought the property misrepresented what use they would make of the property, which formerly was a 1700 acre game preserve. the mayor said that,once it became clear that the flDs intended to build a commune on it, including that big temple, the locals were very angry. he also pointed out that there wasn’t muchhe could do about it in any case since it the property lies a few miles outside of town limits, and so out of their jurisdiction.

MelanieAnne wrote;

*JC, for some Mormons, this FLDS story may “hit close to home” and may elicit all sorts of defense mechanisms and anxiety. Their doctrine still includes polygamy, and while that is not the central problem in the FLDS situation, it is an element.

In such a state of anxiety many people find that lashing out at others is somehow balancing. It’s not truly effective, but the alternative is to confront the truth. Some people don’t want to do that.*

I see what you mean. it appears that this thread has really gotten the various LdS folk in an upraor. I’m sure they’re not happy about the connections between the main LDS religion and the FLDS religion. it seems to me they are working tthree angles. First, to deny connections to the FLDS (Alma147 worked this angle) and second to defend polygamy to some degree (whyme), and third to decry the “attck” in “full armor” upon the peace loving mormons and the confiscation of the children. rmcmullen even made a commnent about flammables and fires, a la Waco.

it appears this story will go on for awhile. I’m really interested in the inventory of mormon men on that compount. So far they are laying low.

also, I wonder if Warren Jeffs is able to have any control from within his jail cell. I wonder about his day to day involvement.
 
I was wondering about Warren Jeffs too. SO I looked him up in Wikipedia:
In a Nevada court hearing on August 31, 2006 Jeffs waived extradition and agreed to return to Utah to face two first-degree felony charges of accomplice rape. Each charge carries an indeterminate penalty of five years to life in prison. Arizona prosecutors are next in line to try Jeffs. He was held in the Washington County, Utah, jail pending an April 23, 2007, trial on two counts of rape as an accomplice for his role in arranging a 2002 marriage between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin.
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Jeffs was believed to be leading his group from jail, and a Utah state board expressed dissatisfaction in dealing with Hildale police, believing that many had ties to Jeffs, and as such, did not cooperate. In May and July of 2007, he was indicted in Arizona on eight counts, including sexual conduct with a minor and incest.
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Jeffs’ trial ran from September 11 to September 25, 2007. The trial was held in St. George, Utah, with judge James L. Shumate presiding. Jeffs was housed in Utah’s Purgatory Correctional Facility in solitary confinement for the duration. At the culmination of the trial, Jeffs was found guilty of two counts of being an accomplice to rape on September 25, 2007. He was sentenced to imprisonment for 10 years to life and has begun serving his sentence at the Utah State Prison.[6]
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Maybe I shouldn’t be qouting such long passages in the forum? Anyway, it did mention that the Utah authorities were concerned that he was still leading the FLDS from jail so they moved him to the Utah State Prison.

Still, you hear about criminal masterminds running their enterprises from heavy security jails so maybe it’s still possible.
 
J_C, my reference to Waco wasn’t just to be inflammatory, although I’m certainly not above that! I think the mass deaths at Waco showed what a major disaster heavy-handed law enforcement could lead to. Two years later it set off Timothy McVeigh and even more died. But you can make a reasonable argument that TM was just a unbalanced sort who was eventually going to make trouble. I’d say there are a few a parallels between Waco and the YFZ ranch and even more to the history of polygamy in the LDS church.

I’m now going to try to be fair with Texas. They had to choose between two alternatives: to allow the FLDS to continue and implcitly, by their inaction, condone their practices, or eradicate them. The only middle ground was to try to “mainstream” them --end their isolation – but that would mean permitting unlicensed polygamy. With a more abundant supply of women, it would end the young marriages (as you pointed out), stop the incest and put an end to the practise of tossing out the young men. Then they’re almost respectable! As I have pointed out, most of their current problems are due to the fact that they’re isolated.

I believe that it was Texas’ intent all along to destroy the FLDS as a people. But they couldn’t be honest about it and the legality of what they’re doing is now being questioned. They understood these two paths and made a conscious choice.

Our society has an incredibly high tolerance for fornication and adultery. As a Christian (though some will debate this!), I believe these are very harmful and selfish practices. I know too many Christian families who are disappointed by their children (grown) cohabitating before marriage. How did this happen? Could it be all the movies and TV and music? What if polygamy was shown on afternoon soaps as often as fornication or adultery? Would we gradually accept it? I believe that it also has a detrimental effect on society and people but not as bad a adultery or fornication. I say that without any proof. Adultery and fornication do not lead to families with some support systems, polygamy at least does. But it has a terrible reputation. So terrible that Texas is willing to break its own laws to stamp it out. I wonder if things will always be that way? Is polygamy one of the evils in Pandora’s box, waiting to be opened?
 
fair enough. here’s my take on it.

both polygamy and adulterous and fornicating bahaviors in society are bad. it isn’t good enough to say, well, we have the one, let’s also allow the other. using that logic we would legalize everything bad, just becuause bad things exist.

as far as the social evils you mention, much of it exacerbated by tv and movies, to say nothing of the internet and idiotic parents, there IS a running commentary on it. Our respective churches never cease to condemn it. That’s about all we can do.

we live in a society which values freedom of choice. not everyone in our country is a Christian, you know. My best friend is an atheist, and I’ve heard him complain about restrictions on what he can and cannot watch on TV just because the do-gooder Christians impose their censorship will on the media.

well, this is a sticky situation. i see it as similar to let’s say, a family engaged in drug production. There are such things. They grow pot, package it up, and sell it. They’re loving people, have a close knit family unit, but they do an illegal thing, and when they get busted they go to their respective prisons, and the children are put in foster homes.

I agree that this is a terrible situation, heartbreaking really. Hopefully no families ultimately will be broken apart. It will take awhile for the authorities to sort things out.
 
mothers who raise their daughters to be raped by old men should not be allowed to keep them. families that drive off their teen sons and hand over their young girls to be raped should be broken up. contrary to what some posters here think Texas is ENFORCING it’s laws in doing this.

now if you want to compare David Koresh to joseph smith? I’m right there with you
 
I want to repeat my earlier post in that anyone interested in FLDS should read Jon Krakauer/s Under the Banner of Heaven.

The book is about Mormon history, and particulary focused on FLDS and the practice of polygamy.

I am in no way associated with the book, just finished it after a Catholic coworker let me borrow it.

Based on what I learned from that book my opinion is as follows - all the men in FLDS are more than likely guilty of domestic abuse, child abuse, rape and child rape. They should never see any of the women or children that have been taken away again.

Any mother that believes they were in a healthy polygamist relationship has no rights to any of the children she bore. She is as culpible as the men, through omission. Given the opportunity she will likely sanction a underage, even incestuous, marriage for her daughters. For her sons, she will stand idly by as they are excommunicated in large part because there are not enough virgins to go around.

Religious freedom does not mean freedom to break the law, especially when there is a unwitting human victim at stake.

Joseph Smith and Brigham Young both had well over thirty wives, many underage. The doctrine of polygamy is borne from Joseph Smith’s pedophelia. The government has tried over the years to eliminate this heinous crime, we can only hope that this step works.

BTW - there are FLDS sects in Canada and Mexico in addition to the United States. Let us pray that the local governments in those jurisdictions do something to stamp out this evil.
 
I have previously discussed how almost all of the troubles the FLDS have is related to how isolated they are, particularly because they insist on a widespread practise of polygamy. Even in places where it’s legal, there must be limits put on it. For example in Nigeria, if a man wants to take a second wife, he must provide a separate house for her and the children. This would be a big barrier for a lot of men in America–who can afford two mortgages?

Another reason why polygamy must only be a small minority is to give the marrigable women a choice.

Another problem is that because polygamy is not legally sanctioned, the FLDS women have no legal rights. All the “spiritual marriages” are just arrangements and there’s no palimony in the US. Let’s say that polygamous marriages were allowed–there would then be a body of law (and a legal apparatus) to cover polygamous divorces and child support and custody battles. That would certainly make men more hesitant in taking on a second wife! Plus it would just be fairer to the women. The community elders have tried to fill that role but it’s difficult for them to be imparial, and there’s no higher court to appeal to.
 
None of the legal barriers to sanctioning the polygamous marriages appear to block the ability of these people to collect welfare and food stamps. So we all get to pay for their perverted life style. They exploit the laws that suit them and ignore the ones that don’t.

Now of course some people will quickly point out that in collecting welfare and food stamps these people are no different from millions of unwed parents in this country and they would be right. But with one important difference ~ I doubt that most other welfare Moms would tell you that they got into the situation they’re in because it was the Will of God.

Having said that, it’s only a minor point. The real issue is that the men of this cult hide behind God to justify child sexual abuse. Polygamy, by itself, between consenting adults, is not nearly as disgusting as child rape.
 
MelanieAnne, you talk as though in the FLDS case the fact that these mothers are on welfare is a given. Perhaps you have some inside story? I know in the case of Tom Greene, that was true. If so, that’s simply an abdication of fatherly responsibility and certainly an indication that they’re not ready for this “higher law”.
 
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