This community was started in southern UT and northern AZ, on the border of the two states. They have a history of crimes and abuses. These include abandoning their male teens, kicking them out, of their community. Not enough female to male ration when the believe is you must have at least 4 wives to make it heaven. So, the old men kick the young boys out and marry the little girls.
The also live a commune lifestyle. The individual people and families do not own anything. Everything is owned by their “church”. In UT, the assets of this organization we’re seized. They were defrauding the community and that state, both AZ and UT.
Warren Jeffs, the man now in prison for rape of a child and for arranging child marriages, was the leader of this group. As the state governments cracked down on his illegal activities, he chose families from this community who he believed were loyal. He reassigned wives to new men, including their children. And started the new community in TX.
They told the locals they were starting a hunting ranch. Soon enough, they’re building their temple and moving the loyal families in.
TX acted in the interest of the children. The history this community has is of abuse and criminal activity. Since one organization owns the entire ranch, there is no law applicable to individual property. One warrant is all that is needed for the entire property. That is what TX did.
They found evidence of child-bride marriages, as this community does. Children in custody of reassigned families, and not with their biological parents. TX is still sorting out some of these cases Just figuring out who the legal parents are required DNA testing. TX has dropped the majority of the cases. There are still a few that remain open. Twelve FLDS men have been indicted.
In the meantime, they are playing it up for all the sympathy they can get. These people lie, and lie a lot. They kick their own children out to the streets with no care in the world as to what happens to them. They marry off their own daughters to men who are three times their age with as many wives or more. I wouldn’t trust a thing they had to say.
Girls are nothing but a commodity for the appetites of old men.
If Oprah is defending this community, she has been duped.
So you are saying that Oprah was shown a “facade,” and that the real community life was hidden from her and her cameramen? That she was duped.
I suspect that, too. And I think Oprah suspected that, but in that particular visit, it would not have been appropriate for her to challenge the people too much.
I don’t blame Oprah for defending what she did see. Other than the polygamy, the ranch community was very simliar to some of the traditional Catholic pods in our city. In these pods, the women and girls all wear long prairie dresses and no makeup and do not cut their hair. The boys all wear slacks and tucked-in shirts. The children are well-mannered and pleasant. They are homeschooled and for the most part, kept separated from the rest of the community. They attend the TLM only. They’re not exactly supportive of the OF of the Mass, but they don’t publically condemn it, either. And these families are very large, with many children. And they all stick together, hence my term “pod.”
They’re a little strange. But I have gotten to know at least one of the families, and they’re very pleasant. Not really friendly. But I can’t say I blame them. I’m sure they are constantly facing criticism from people who think that they are a cult.
This is the kind of family that Oprah was shown, and no wonder she seems to support it. There’s nothing wrong with being a little “strange.”
However, I fear (and I think Oprah kind of thinks this too) that we were not shown the “whole story” and that she was kept away from the seaminess of the Ranch and from people who would have loved to give her an earful of the real story. I wonder how many bound, gagged young women were being held in basements as far away from the camera crews as possible.
E.g., when Oprah asked about the “beds” in the temple, the male guide was very vague in his answer. Of course, Oprah couldn’t challenge him because he would have turned her and her camera crew out the gate. But I wish that a more tenacious reporter could ask those same questions and demand adequate answers. And maybe they will after this presentation.
But I doubt it. As I said, it seems very hypocritical of the U.S. government or any state government to make laws against polygymous marriage or even against sex with minors when all over the country, condoms are handed out in Middle Schools with the assumption that these young teenagers WILL be having sex, and many of them will be having sex with boys or girls who are 18 or older.
If the U.S. government truly opposes young sex, then they shouldn’t make it easier.
Never thought about it like that, that’s amazing!
I think that is the way any reader would read it, if it were written in plain and simple English.
