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Mormons

They probably already have - posthumously :hah:
 
Another ex-Mormon here . . .

I second the recommendation for Jon Krakauer's book Under the Banner of Heaven. Fascinating read, and the history on the Church is very accurate.

Also recommended: Early Mormonism and the Magic Worldview, by Klaus J. Hansen. You can read a review of it here:

http://www.signaturebooks.com/reviews/magic.htm

Re: funny underwear . . . they are called 'garments' and are symbolic of the coats of skins Adam and Eve wore after they left the Garden of Eden. You can get them in a one piece style, or in a top and bottom set. They have symbols of protection sewn in various places. When the garment is worn out, you are to cut those symbols off, shred them, and then destroy the garment.

There are many 'folk tales' within the Church of people being saved from death and disaster because they were wearing their garments. Some people actually hold them in one hand when they're taking a bath or shower, so that they will stay protected.

Re: baptism by proxy . . . it is supposed to be done only for members of your own family who have died. The Church doesn't plump up its membership rolls by adding the names of people baptized after death. They do that by urging young marrieds to crank out babies, the more the merrier.

Re: polygamy . . . the official Church stance is complete intolerance of polygamous practices within the Church population, but when it comes to the splinter groups, everyone was turning a blind eye to them and maintaining a rather pained silence. I've driven the stretch between Richfield (south central Utah) and Salt Lake or Provo many a time and passed by compounds, clusters of trailers, etc. And you used to see the wives out shopping all the time. They were instantly recognizable for their clothing and braided hair. I'm sure things have begun to change since the authorities have gone after the FLDS sect.

Most Mormons are a likeable bunch. However, they are told that every person on the planet must be told about the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thus the huge emphasis on missionary work.

Saw the South Park episode and laughed myself sick. :)
 
Mythopoeika said:
If they are named after the book of 'Moroni', why aren't they called morons then? :lol:

I suspect that the founder of the religion was having a bit of a laugh at his followers' expense...
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Lol. They're named after Mormon - Moroni's father if I remember correctly; same chap the Book of Mormon's named after.
 
Here's how baptism by proxy works:

According to Mormon belief, every human born must be offered a chance to learn of the gospel of Jesus Christ. (There are exceptions for children under the age of eight.) Mormons believe that there are missionaries working amongst the spirits of the departed, preaching the gospel. (See, you won't be able to get away from the young guys in black suits with Q-tip haircuts even in the hereafter! Don't say I didn't warn you. ;) )

It is also a tenet of the faith that everyone must be physically baptized by full immersion in water. Even Christ submitted to this rule. (Some Mormons even believe that the Great Flood was the Earth's baptism by water, though you won't hear many people talk about this idea.) Since this is impossible for dead people (we won't go there, ick) a living person stands in for them.

Back when I was active in the Church I did quite a few baptisms by proxy (and other temple work besides). They are done in the lowest section of a temple (usually the basement; there are seven floors in each temple, symbolic of progress in life and also the seven levels of exaltation in the spirit world), in a very large baptismal font whose support is shaped like twelve oxen. There is a computer screen set up by the font, and the elder doing the baptizing reads the name off the screen. There's nothing like getting dunked a dozen or more times in a row (my all-time score was forty). There have to be witnesses as well, because if any part of you doesn't go completely under--even if a bit of your clothes or your hair floats up--it has to be done again. Complete immersion means just that. If completed correctly, the baptism is recorded and the elder goes on to the next name.

All baptisms by proxy work on the same 'accept or reject' basis. The deceased is free to choose. That way if they accept the gospel, the baptism is taken care of.

Nowadays I understand the only names supposed to go in for baptism and other temple rites are your own family's names, which must be verified by various strict genealogical rules. That was not always the case, but I've heard the Church has stopped baptizing groups of names not submitted by families. Also, as far as I know there is no fee for the baptism whatsoever, and the Church does not put proxy baptism names on the membership rolls.

Any genealogical information gathered by the Church is not only for the use of its members but also offered for the use of anyone wanting to explore the branches of their family tree. Many older Mormons go on 'missions' to genealogical centers, where they put their own expertise to work.

Hope this helps clarify the process a bit. :)
 
horik--you're right. :)

The Church officially frowns on the nickname 'Mormon', they prefer Latter Day Saint.
 
Brighid45,
Thank you for your post. It is indeed helpful to have comment from one who has an insiders view of the Mormon church.

Peace

=^..^=217
 
You're welcome BJ. It seems kinda weird to talk about it, since I've been gone from Mormondom for over ten years now, but I grew up Mormon and know the culture pretty well, so it's easy to answer questions and explain things. All in all, it's a strange, paradoxical religion that exerts a powerful influence over you, even when you leave it.

One good side effect: having been trained in converting others from the time I was seven, I'm immune to conversion efforts by other religions. They don't even stand a chance. :tongue:
 
All in all, it's a strange, paradoxical religion that exerts a powerful influence over you, even when you leave it.

One good side effect: having been trained in converting others from the time I was seven, I'm immune to conversion efforts by other religions. They don't even stand a chance.
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Wow! That sounds like the religion I was raised in, Southern Baptist.
Come to think of it, John the Baptist was a crazy dude in the desert :shock:
Peace
=^..^=217
 
Inverurie Jones said:
Do they still live in that little treehouse thing?
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You're confusing Mormons with Ewoks, surely.
 
I thought they were Theosophists...
 
I asked this on the re-org thread, but I'm not sure who-all reads that besides the hardcore. :oops: I was getting ready to post a polygamy story, but I wanted to ask this first of people who read/contribute to this thread.

...what do people think about dividing the Mormon thread (not the history one, the main one) into one about the 'orthodox' LDS church and one about the various offshoots, particularly the polygamists-who-live-in-a-compound types. It seems like while there's enough weirdness (sorry, no offense) associated with Mormon beliefs that they merit their own thread, the other folks are real sectarians who come into conflict with civil authorities, among others.

I'll do the sifting, but wanted to get people's thoughts.
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Its possible things might go into meltdown soon on the FLDS front:

The lost boys, thrown out of US sect so that older men can marry more wives

Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday June 14, 2005
The Guardian

Up to 1,000 teenage boys have been separated from their parents and thrown out of their communities by a polygamous sect to make more young women available for older men, Utah officials claim.

Many of these "Lost Boys", some as young as 13, have simply been dumped on the side of the road in Arizona and Utah, by the leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), and told they will never see their families again or go to heaven.

The 10,000-strong FLDS, which broke away from the Mormon church in 1890 when the mainstream faith disavowed polygamy, believes a man must marry at least three women to go to heaven. The sect appeared to be in turmoil yesterday, after its assets were frozen last week and a warrant was issued in Arizona on Friday for the arrest of its autocratic leader, Warren Jeffs, for arranging a wedding between an underage girl and a 28-year-old man who was already married.

Mr Jeffs is also being sued by lawyers for six of the Lost Boys for conspiracy to purge surplus males from the community, and by his nephew, Brent Jeffs, who accuses him of sexual abuse.

Warren Jeffs' whereabouts yesterday were uncertain, but Utah officials said they believed he may be hiding in an FLDS compound near Eldorado, Texas, and they have contacted the Texan authorities.

Some have voiced concern that an attempt to corner the sect leader could provoke a tragedy like the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian sect in Waco, Texas.

Jim Hill, an investigator in Utah's attorney general's office, told The Guardian yesterday: "From everything I've been able to discern about Warren Jeffs, he is someone who is capable of some very different things. Whether that includes a mass suicide, I don't know. But I worry about it all the time."

FLDS officials and the sect's lawyer, Rodney Parker, did not return calls seeking comment, but have previously argued that the Lost Boys were exiled from their communities because they were teenage delinquents who refused to keep the sect's rules.

Mr Hill said although the boys may have been rebellious, their expulsion had more to do with the ruthless sexual arithmetic of a polygamous sect.

"Obviously if you're going to have three to one or four to one female to male marriages, you're going to run out of females. The way of taking care of it is selectively casting out those you don't want to be in the religion," the investigator said.

Dave Bills, who runs Smiles for Diversity, a foundation in Salt Lake City set up by an ex-FLDS member to look after the Lost Boys, said it was difficult to estimate their numbers because they had been scattered. But Mr Bills said the figures could be "as low as 400 and as high as 1,000".

"They live every day like it's their last day and they don't care about anything," Mr Bills said. "They're told they won't have three wives, and they're doomed. But they all want to go back to their mums."

One of the boys, Gideon Barlow, said he was expelled from a FLDS community in Colorado City, Arizona, for wearing short-sleeved shirts, listening to CDs and having a girlfriend. He said his mother rejected him on orders from the sect's leaders.

"I couldn't see how my mum would let them do what they did to me," he told the Los Angeles Times. After his expulsion, he attempted to give her a Mother's Day present but she told him to stay away. "I am dead to her now," he said.

Joanne Suder, a lawyer representing some of the Lost Boys in a case against the sect, said there had been "a conspiracy to excommunicate young boys to change the arithmetic so there are more young girls available for polygamy."

She said some of the boys were simply driven out of town and dumped on the side of the road, leaving them traumatised. "I think anyone who finds themselves ousted from the only environment they ever knew and left in the middle of nowhere, and then is not allowed to be with their family and loved ones, and is led to believe that they can no longer go to heaven, is going to be troubled," Ms Suder told The Guardian.

Polygamy is illegal in the US, but the authorities have been wary of confronting the FLDS for fear of provoking a siege or inviting political attacks for religious persecution.

State investigators have also found it hard to persuade FLDS members to give evidence against Mr Jeffs. However, authorities in Utah and Arizona have recently increased the pressure on the sect's leader, Last week, a Utah judge froze FLDS assets, and the attorney's office in Mohave County, Arizona, charged Mr Jeffs for arranging a marriage between a 28-year-old married and a 16-year-old girl. If convicted he could serve up to two years in prison.

Mr Jeffs inherited the leadership of the FLDS three years ago after the death of his father, Rulon. Since then, he has ruled its enclaves on the Arizona-Utah border, in Texas and Canada with fearsome discipline. At the age of 49 he has reportedly fathered at least 56 children by 40 wives.

There have been no confirmed sightings of Mr Jeffs for over a year, but a photograph of a man resembling the sect leader was taken in January at the FLDS 1,700-acre Texas ranch near Eldorado.

Randy Mankin, the editor of the local newspaper, the Eldorado Success, said: "People on the ranch don't have contact with the outside world. Two men only do whatever is necessary to do their business."

What is the FLDS?

The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints split off from the Mormon church in 1890, when the mainstream faith disavowed polygamy.

The sect has communes in Utah, Arizona, Texas and Canada. It is the biggest polygamous group in the US.

What does the FLDS believe?

Polygamy allows a higher birth rate, increasing the "righteous" population. No man can go to heaven if he has less than three wives. The sect believes black people are inferior, the offspring of Cain. It teaches that America was first colonised by a lost tribe of Israelites and was visited by Jesus after his resurrection.

Who runs the sect?

Warren Jeffs, 49, inherited the leadership in 2002 after his father, Rulon, died. He has pursued a hard line against sect members deemed to fall short of "perfection", and has purged hundreds from the ranks, mostly men and boys. He is estimated to have 40 wives and 56 children. His whereabouts are uncertain but he is widely thought to be holed up in the FLDS compound outside El Dorado, Texas.

Who are the "lost boys"?

Among those purged from the sect are between 400 and 1,000 teenage boys and young men. The FLDS describes them as delinquents. Utah authorities say they were thrown out to make more girls available as wives for older men in the sect.
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www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/ ... 95,00.html
 
Lopaka, I think any Mormons reading and posting in this forum would be thankful if you split them off from the re-orgs like RLDS and FLDS. Pun intended. ;)

As for Warren Jeffs and his horrid little empire . . . I think you're right Emperor, it's all about to go very, very wrong down there in Texas. Eesh. What a mess.
 
How would the FLDS stand in the UK with the laws regarding racism etc., etc.?
 
Hellfire and sexual coercion: the dark side of American polygamist sects

Julian Borger in Manti, Utah
Thursday June 30, 2005
The Guardian

James Harmston's letters to his youngest bride threaten fire and brimstone for her refusal to sleep with him. Not only would Rachael, 43 years his junior, have "a lonely miserable life" in this world for not going to his bed, but it would be far worse in the next.

"Rachael, the facts are, whether you want to believe or not, the end is coming and judgment will be executed in severity, especially for those who have broken their covenants," Mr Harmston wrote, adding: "For certain I will deal with you in the future eternity."

He signed himself "Your Husband, King and Priest", and sent copies of his letters to five of his 18 wives, one of whom was Rachael's mother, Pauline.

They would be troubling letters from any jilted husband. But from Mr Harmston - the self-declared prophet of a polygamist and apocalyptic sect, the True and Living Church of Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days - they were terrifying.

They also shine a light on a dark place in the American west. Polygamy is something that has officially been consigned to history, but it is still very much alive.

Watchdog groups believe there could be between 30,000 and 100,000 Americans living in polygamy today, many of them in Utah, where the practice first took root, and others scattered across the North American continent.

They live independently, shut up in reclusive homes out of public sight, or in self-contained communes governed by idiosyncratic rules and beliefs.

But everywhere it goes, critics and former sect members argue, polygamy takes with it the danger of institutionalised abuse of women and children, over whom it gives men supreme power.

Rachael Strong is now 21 and has broken free of Mr Harmston and the sect. Since she and her mother walked out some nine months ago, they have been living scarcely 100 metres away from the True and Living Church (known here as TLC) in the small town of Manti, and her former husband continues to cast a long shadow. "I wasn't going to argue with him. He was the prophet," Ms Strong said, cradling her two-year-old daughter Kirsten, the offspring of an earlier polygamous marriage within the sect.

"Nobody would help me. Everyone was scared of Jim. He got up in church and said if any wife disobeyed him, he would send her to hell for a thousand years.

"Jim also said that because of my actions Kirsten would have to die by some natural causes or accident to save her soul."

Contacted by telephone in his office, Mr Harmston refused to discuss Ms Strong. "I don't talk about people who are mentally ill," he said.

In person, Ms Strong appeared articulate, calm and determined. But the TLC prophet added: "I don't care what she's accused me of. Reality is something she makes up from moment to moment."

Mr Harmston conceded he had been married to her. In the vocabulary of his church, he said: "I was sealed to her for a while", and then he hung up.

With the help of Tapestry Against Polygamy, a support group for former wives of such marriages, Ms Strong has taken her case to the Utah state authorities, claiming that the pressure Mr Harmston put her under to have sex constituted rape. "If someone sat there with a gun and said sleep with me, you'd call that rape. But God is scarier than that," she said. "God is more powerful than a fist."

The Utah attorney general's office in Salt Lake City has said it will look into Ms Strong's case but is clearly sceptical. Jim Hill, special investigator into polygamous sects, said: "She was an adult when all the conduct alleged occurred - an adult consenting to a bigamous relationship."

Polygamy is a crime in the US, but the law is commonly flouted and prosecutions are rare.

The TLC sect is one of dozens of polygamous sects which are splinters from Utah's dominant religion, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, otherwise known as the Mormons.

Under pressure from Washington, the Mormon church formally disavowed the practice of polygamy in 1890, but it remains in the church scriptures as an ideal for humanity to aspire to after Christ's second coming and in the afterlife.

From its Salt Lake City headquarters, the church leadership exerts near-total control of the state, and as the fastest growing religion in the country, with 11 million members worldwide, it wields serious influence in Washington.

All Utah's congressional delegation in Washington are Mormon, as is the Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid. Church policy has been to excommunicate polygamists but not to confront them, and that approach has been mirrored by the FBI and Utah state prosecutors.

"The attorney general is not interested in pursuing people for their religious beliefs or their private conduct in their own bedrooms," Mr Hill said.

That uneasy truce now appears to be coming apart. National attention has been drawn to the "lost boys", up to 1,000 teenagers thrown out of polygamous sects to make more girls available for marriage to the elders.

Warren Jeffs, the head of one of the largest polygamous sects, the 10,000-strong Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is on the run, wanted in Arizona for arranging the marriage of an underage girl.

An investigation is also under way into the trafficking of girls between polygamous sects on either side of the US-Canadian border.

Andrea Moore-Emmett, the author of God's Brothel, a book about polygamy's victims, said: "The national press just thought it's a goofy Utah problem. But it's spread all over the country, in 38 states."

After nine years growing up in the TLC in Manti, Rachael Strong put it this way: "Polygamy is an environment of abuse."

From the age of 11 she was taught that Jim Harmston was the reincarnation of Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon faith. He travelled to other planets in his sleep and spoke with God's authority. Sex with the church elders was a sacrament.

"He says orgasm and witness of the Holy Ghost are the same thing," Ms Strong said. "Sex is the whole thing for him."

Manti is a quiet town, stretched out along a fertile valley in the shadow of a cathedral-sized Mormon temple. It does not look like a hub of organised crime. But in the eyes of their most committed opponents, that is what the polygamous sects represent.

"It is ironic that my country is going into other countries to protect the rights of other people. But here in America we have a society every bit as repressive as the Taliban," Ms Moore-Emmett said.

While pressure gathers for action against the polygamist prophets, Rachael Strong is trying to start her life anew. Having had only a TLC education, which taught history as a succession of Mr Harmston's reincarnations, she is studying for her high school exams in the hope of becoming a nurse or a massage therapist.

But the first item on her to-do list is "Get out of Utah".
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www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/ ... 90,00.html
 
Mormons prepare for worst by storing supplies By Laura Zuckerman
32 minutes ago



On a mild October day, disaster seems unlikely to strike this Mormon outpost in Idaho but that does not stop residents from preparing for the worst.

In the aftermath of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, many Americans have begun to ponder how they would cope with major disaster. But for many of Rexburg, Idaho's 22,000 residents -- roughly 90 percent of whom are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- the question of who will provide if calamity strikes has long been settled.

A decades-old Mormon practice of storing one year's supply of food for each family member has been expanded to include the purchase of emergency-related equipment and a recommendation to have health, life and property insurance.

"There was a time when we were considered kooky survivalists," said attorney Greg Moeller, unsalaried head of a group of congregations, known as a stake, in Rexburg. "Now perceptions have changed."

Storing emergency supplies is linked to a church doctrine by founder Joseph Smith: "If ye are prepared ye shall not fear." Additionally, Mormon leaders say persecution of early members of the church, established in the 19th century, helped create a tradition of preparing for emergencies.

A church that advises its 13 million members to prime themselves for disaster is poised to provide for others, its leaders say, adding that the broader society would benefit from adopting its model. They point to trucks loaded with food and hygiene kits the church sent to the Gulf Coast after Katrina struck and before government agencies arrived.

Residents of Rexburg, home of Brigham Young University-Idaho, have some understanding of what hurricane victims have suffered. The town was nearly destroyed in 1976 when the Teton Dam failed, flooding 300 square miles, killing at least 11 and causing $1 billion in damage.

The flood claimed the house of Dean Arnold, 84. "I lost everything but the people from the church came from all over Utah and western Idaho with their food and other supplies and we had plenty," he said.

Web sites maintained by the church contain hundreds of pages of information about types of food and drink to store. One site provides an interactive calculator to help families determine how much food is required for each member.

Similarly, government and disaster agencies offer a wealth of information on Web sites about emergency preparedness. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is charged with educating the public about personal planning and preparedness, but it is unclear if its message has reached a mass audience.

SELF RELIANCE

By contrast, Mormon admonitions about preparedness mesh with a prime church directive that members be self-reliant.

When the Bush administration promoted faith-based initiatives, officials at church headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, declined to apply for government funding to help fuel the church's multimillion-dollar welfare program.

Stretching across 13 acres in downtown Salt Lake City, the church's Welfare Square contains food and milk-processing plants as well as canneries and an employment center.

Idaho Falls, 30 miles southwest of Rexburg, is home to one of church's 108 food storehouses across the United States and Canada. Like Welfare Square, the Idaho Falls facility has a cannery manned by volunteers and maintains warehouses stacked with goods ranging from chicken-noodle soup to strawberry jam.

Charles Olsen, the Idaho Falls facility manager, said the practice of producing at church-owned farms the food it offers to the needy and to members to store for emergencies is another example of "practicing what it preaches."

"We tell our members to rely on themselves, not government aid, so it's only natural the church doesn't accept government assistance," he said.

The storehouse allows church members to pack goods for storage and provides staples such as bulk grains and dried fruit. Labels indicate nutritional value and shelf life.

Doyle Batt, who heads a 3,000-member stake in Idaho Falls, said his family maintains a year's supply of food and 72-hour kits with essentials for emergencies. Batt says he often reminds members to prepare for calamities.

"We're hearing about major catastrophes with greater frequency -- famines in Africa, the tsunami in Asia, now hurricanes in this country," he said.

Katherine Isaacs and her husband recently made the 10-hour drive to Idaho Falls from their eastern Montana home to package food for storage and to fill food orders for members of their congregation. "I think we're going to need it very soon, if not for ourselves, for others," Isaacs said.

Mormons
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This is still going on:

Posted on Mon, Dec. 26, 2005

Sect's 'Lost Boys' struggle to find a place

An Arizona-based polygamist sect has expelled more than 400 teen boys to leave more brides for older men

BY JAIMEE ROSE
Arizona Republic

On an icy evening before Christmas, two teenage boys pulled their Christmas tree from its slick new box and stared in wonder.

They fluffed the branches and puzzled over ornament placement — how exactly does this work? Are you supposed to follow a pattern or just stick them on? They knew they wanted piles of lights, and the boys laughed as they chased each other around the tree, spiraling light onto the dark branches.

"This is, like, my first real, actual Christmas," says Johnny Jessop. He is 16 years old.

Jessop grew up in Colorado City, Ariz., in a polygamous home with 39 moms and more than 300 brothers and sisters, but no Christmas. The holiday is not observed in his religion-ruled town, where the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has orphaned more than 400 teenagers like Jessop in order to leave young women for marriage to the older men. The men believe they need three wives to get to heaven.

Shunned by their families and forbidden to return home, the "Lost Boys," as they are known, are left to fumble darkly through a world they can't comprehend. With no money and often only eighth-grade educations, many end up homeless or in jail. But a lucky few have found their way to a Salt Lake City support network of mentors who are sending them to school, finding them jobs, giving them homes and asking these boys, for the first time, what they'd like for Christmas.

In the apartment shared by five of the Lost Boys, since the day they put the tree up, the Christmas tree lights have never been turned off.

The tree "fills up space, fills a hole," Jessop says.

The first time Jessop saw Christmas lights, they were on TV.

When you first leave Colorado City, they say, you sit on borrowed sofas in small towns across southern Utah, in the home of whoever has let you in, and stare at the TV screen, uploading American culture.

In the twin communities of Colorado City and Hildale, Utah, TV is banned by FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs, who is in hiding and wanted by the FBI. He was indicted on sexual misconduct charges for arranging the marriages of underage girls. He is also being sued by a group of the Lost Boys, who say he forced them out to reduce competition for wives.

Also against the rules in Colorado City: kissing girls, having a dog, swimming, listening to secular music, celebrating worldly holidays, wearing short-sleeve shirts, talking to people outside their faith and being outside after dark.

The boys go to work in construction at age 8, handing their paychecks over to their fathers. By age 14, they're operating heavy machinery. Education is administered through a religious sieve: no history classes and no biology instruction; and for most, schooling ends after the eighth grade. The only book they read is the Book of Mormon, although the FLDS and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are not associated; the FLDS split from the mainstream Mormon church more than a century ago over the practice of polygamy.

When a boy reaches his 20s, if he's followed all the rules, he might be allowed to marry, but he won't choose the girl.

"You get a call on the phone," says Brad Zitting, 21, and it's the prophet. " 'Be in my office in one hour.' He marries you right there, work clothes and everything." Then, you're sent off to consummate the marriage, whether you like her or not.

"You know what the worst thing is?" says Zitting, who was exiled for kissing. "The worst thing is when you have the hots for this girl, you're just like uhhhhn. And then she marries your dad."

But in recent years, as a young teen, it is far more common that you'd have a message from Jeffs that goes like this:

" 'Warren wants you out,"' recalls Jessop, banished one week into eighth grade as punishment for visiting a friend's house outside of Colorado City. "I went up to my mom's room, and she was crying. All she said was 'Why?' "

This Christmas, Lost Boy Sam Icke is buying just one gift. He's having a plaque engraved for a man who has everything, and has given Icke and the other Lost Boys everything in return.

Dan Fischer is white-haired, with kind eyes and a dignified air.

He grew up in polygamy, and once had two wives himself.

He is the eldest of 36 children, and his own father was expelled from the faith, his mother reassigned in marriage to another man. For years, he has been watching this exodus of broken-hearted boys.

Fischer, 56, started the Diversity Foundation to help the boys, and has donated more than $2 million to help them.

He finds them work at Ultradent, the dental-supply manufacturing company he owns in the Salt Lake suburbs.

He sends the boys and young men to college to illuminate their minds, gets them into therapy to correct what was there before. In return, he asks that they go to school, keep a job, return phone calls, and learn, above all, to see their lives in a new light.
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www.twincities.com/mld/twincities/13486967.htm
 
Thursday, February 9, 2006

Birth defect is plaguing children in FLDS towns

Fumarase Deficiency afflicts 20, is linked to marriages of close kin

By John Hollenhorst
KSL-TV

It's one of the darkest secrets of the Warren Jeffs polygamist community.

An especially severe form of birth defect is on the rise and may mushroom in coming generations.

"I don't want to describe it in too much detail," said Isaac Wyler, who was related by marriage to some of the victims. "It's not a real pretty sight."

According to experts and former Jeffs followers, the cause of the birth defect is clear: Intermarriage among close relatives is producing children who have two copies of a recessive gene for a debilitating condition called Fumarase Deficiency.

They predict the scale of the problem will increase dramatically in the future. Wyler, who has lived in the polygamist community most of his life, said he expects residents to continue marrying close relatives.

"Around here," Wyler said, "you're pretty much related to everybody."

Fumarase Deficiency is an enzyme irregularity that causes severe mental retardation, epileptic seizures and other cruel effects that leave children nearly helpless and unable to take care of themselves.

Dr. Theodore Tarby has treated many of the children at clinics in Arizona under contracts with the state. All are retarded. "In the severe category of mental retardation," the neurologist said, "which means an IQ down there around 25 or so."

Until a few years ago, scientists knew of only 13 cases of Fumarase Deficiency in the entire world. Tarby said he's now aware of 20 more victims, all within a few blocks of each other on the Utah-Arizona border.

The children live in the polygamist community once known as Short Creek that is now incorporated as the twin towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz. Tarby believes the recessive gene for Fumarase Deficiency was introduced to the community by one of its early polygamist founders.

According to community historian Ben Bistline, most of the community's 8,000 residents are in two major families descended from a handful of founders who settled there in the 1930s to live a polygamist lifestyle.

"Ninety percent of the community is related to one side or the other," Bistline said.

For many years, Bistline was a member of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS), which today reveres fugitive polygamist Warren Jeffs as a prophet.

"They claim to be the chosen people, the chosen few," Bistline said. "And their claim is they marry closely to preserve the royal bloodline, so to speak."

Wyler, who says Jeffs kicked him out of the FLDS group two years ago, has observed some of the "Fumarase children" in their home environment.

"I've seen some children that can talk and communicate a little," Wyler said. "And I've seen others that are totally laid out. They have no movement. They can't do anything by themselves. Literally, if they're 8 years old, it's like taking care of a baby."

Tarby saw the first "Fumarase child" in the community 15 years ago. He said the oldest victim is now about 20 years old. In March 2000, Tarby co-authored an article in the medical journal "Annals of Neurology" describing eight new cases of Fumarase Deficiency in the Southwest. It has now grown to 20 known cases in the polygamist community on the Utah-Arizona border.

Tarby said children suffering from Fumarase Deficiency have unusual facial features and frequent "grand mal" epileptic seizures. The children require constant care from parents and close relatives. "In some ways, they are really kind of remarkable people," Tarby said. "They do treat these kids pretty well."

Wyler agreed that the parents and close relatives are loving caregivers. He said it's partly because they believe it's a calling from God. "They would just assume they've been given a test and they need to pass this test," Wyler said. "And it's their lot in life to take care of a child like this. And they'll give it everything they've got. And they'll do a good job. Very good job."

Tarby said the early founder who brought the recessive gene into the community had numerous children, so copies of the gene were passed on to children and grandchildren. When cousins or other close relatives marry, two copies of the gene can be passed on to a single child, triggering the disease.

In the FLDS community, marriages with cousins and even closer relatives are common, according to Bistline. "There are people that have married their nieces," Bistline said. "People who have married their aunts."

It's all part of the community's religious system, according to Wyler. "Well, around here, of course, when you get married, you're told who to marry and when to get married and things like that. So, that's really not going to change, I don't believe."

"As long as they've got the leadership they've got," Bistline said, "they'll never change."

It's believed that more than half the residents carry the recessive gene. That means the number of cases will likely grow. Tarby said there could be hundreds of victims in coming generations. "No, it wouldn't surprise me," Tarby said. "Wouldn't surprise me."

Wyler hopes FLDS leaders will change their marriage practices. "Now that they know there's a problem," Wyler said, "they need to quit sweeping it under the rug and pretend there's not a problem. And (they should) say, 'OK, now you know when you cross these certain lines together, then this happens.' And they need fresh blood."

Tarby has suggested to community residents that they undergo genetic screening before marriage. They've ignored the suggestion, Tarby said. "I really doubt that if we could tell them, you know, 'This male has the condition and this female has the condition; you shouldn't mate,' that wouldn't stop them."

On one occasion at an Arizona clinic, Tarby explained to one of the fathers the reason he had a Fumarase child. "You and your wife are related," Tarby said he told the man.

The father replied, "Up there we're all related." Tarby said he was not sure if the man meant "up there in Colorado City or up there in heaven."

Tarby said the children are a financial burden on taxpayers, although he's not sure how much. In Arizona, the children frequently receive medical services at state expense, Tarby said. He believes some Fumarase children live on the north side of the border and receive some of their medical care in Utah, presumably at taxpayer expense. Officials in both states say they can't reveal data because of privacy laws.

When asked if he considered the situation wrong, Tarby said, "Wrong? I've given up trying to sort those things out. I don't think they're going to change much."

In the course of investigating the problem, KSL-TV learned the names of some victims and their parents but chose not to reveal them. Through intermediaries, KSL offered parents a chance to speak, but they did not respond.
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http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635182923,00.html
 
mormons: Bedrock of a Faith Is Jolted

Bedrock of a Faith Is Jolted


From the time he was a child in Peru, the Mormon Church instilled in Jose A. Loayza the conviction that he and millions of other Native Americans were descended from a lost tribe of Israel that reached the New World more than 2,000 years ago. 'We were taught all the blessings of that Hebrew lineage belonged to us and that we were special people,' said Loayza, now a Salt Lake City attorney. 'It not only made me feel special, but it gave me a sense of transcendental identity, an identity with God.' A few years ago, Loayza said, his faith was shaken and his identity stripped away by DNA evidence showing that the ancestors of American natives came from Asia, not the Middle East. 'I've gone through stages,' he said. 'Absolutely denial. Utter amazement and surprise. Anger and bitterness.' For Mormons, the lack of discernible Hebrew blood in Native Americans is no minor collision between faith and science. It burrows into the historical foundations of the Book of Mormon, a 175-year-old transcription that the church regards as literal and without error.

For those outside the faith, the depth of the church's dilemma can be explained this way: Imagine if DNA evidence revealed that the Pilgrims didn't sail from Europe to escape religious persecution but rather were part of a migration from Iceland and that U.S. history books were wrong.

Critics want the church to admit its mistake and apologize to millions of Native Americans it converted. Church leaders have shown no inclination to do so. Indeed, they have dismissed as heresy any suggestion that Native American genetics undermine the Mormon creed.

Yet at the same time, the church has subtly promoted a fresh interpretation of the Book of Mormon intended to reconcile the DNA findings with the scriptures. This analysis is radically at odds with long-standing Mormon teachings.

Some longtime observers believe that ultimately, the vast majority of Mormons will disregard the genetic research as an unworthy distraction from their faith. 'This may look like the crushing blow to Mormonism from the outside,' said Jan Shipps, a professor emeritus of religious studies at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, who has studied the church for 40 years. 'But religion ultimately does not rest on scientific evidence, but on mystical experiences. There are different ways of looking at truth.' According to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an angel named Moroni led Joseph Smith in 1827 to a divine set of golden plates buried in a hillside near his New York home.

God provided the 22-year-old Smith with a pair of glasses and seer stones that allowed him to translate the 'Reformed Egyptian' writings on the golden plates into the 'Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ.' Mormons believe these scriptures restored the church to God's original vision and left the rest of Christianity in a state of apostasy.

The book's narrative focuses on a tribe of Jews who sailed from Jerusalem to the New World in 600 BC and split into two main warring factions.

The God-fearing Nephites were 'pure' (the word was officially changed from 'white' in 1981) and 'delightsome.' The idol-worshiping Lamanites received the 'curse of blackness,' turning their skin dark.

According to the Book of Mormon, by 385 AD the dark-skinned Lamanites had wiped out other Hebrews. The Mormon church called the victors 'the principal ancestors of the American Indians.' If the Lamanites returned to the church, their skin could once again become white.

Over the years, church prophets believed by Mormons to receive revelations from God and missionaries have used the supposed ancestral link between the ancient Hebrews and Native Americans and later Polynesians as a prime conversion tool in Central and South America and the South Pacific. 'As I look into your faces, I think of Father Lehi [patriarch of the Lamanites], whose sons and daughters you are,' church president and prophet Gordon B. Hinckley said in 1997 during a Mormon conference in Lima, Peru. 'I think he must be shedding tears today, tears of love and gratitude.... This is but the beginning of the work in Peru.' In recent decades, Mormonism has flourished in those regions, which now have nearly 4 million members about a third of Mormon membership worldwide, according to church figures. 'That was the big sell,' said Damon Kali, an attorney who practices law in Sunnyvale, Calif., and is descended from Pacific Islanders. 'And quite frankly, that was the big sell for me. I was a Lamanite. I was told the day of the Lamanite will come.'

Source

[Emp edit: Fixing big link]
 
great stuff!

it brings to mind another polygamous prophet. i wonder if dna evidence could play any role in shaking the tenets of islam? islam was invented by muhammed in a similar manner to the way smith invented mormonism. i woner if smith got the idea from muhammed?
 
This isn't shaping up well:

ANOTHER WACO-TYPE CULT

MASS MURDER WAITING TO HAPPEN?

May 15, 2006


AS police and prosecutors arrived to investigate Warren Jeffs' 10,000-strong enclave in Colorado City in Arizona this week, some residents were seen hurriedly moving out.

When state Attorney General Terry Goddard tried to serve subpoenas at the city's town hall, he found it deserted.

'People weren't exactly waiting for us with open arms in the front yard,' Mr Goddard told the Deseret Morning News in Salt Lake City.

'There's an awful lot of fences that have been built.'

Law enforcement officers described the atmosphere in the isolated town, a stronghold of Jeffs' Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), as tense.

On the outskirts of the town, which straddles the remote Utah-Arizona border, an enormous wall has been built around Jeffs' castle-like compound.

State-of-the-art surveillance equipment has also been fitted.

In recent speeches, Jeffs has been prophesising that a final showdown between the faithful and the outside world was coming, the FBI says.

ARMED SIEGE?

This has led some in US law enforcement circles to fear that he is planning an armed siege to avoid arrest.

They fear confronting him could provoke a tragedy like the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian sect in Waco, Texas, which led to the deaths of around 80 members.

A Utah official told news agency AP last year: 'Jeffs is someone who is capable of very different things. Whether that includes a mass suicide, I don't know.

'But I worry about it all the time.'

But Mr Rodney Parker, a lawyer for the FLDS since 1990, told the Los Angeles Times yesterday that Jeffs had been unfairly cast as the next Jim Jones or David Koresh - cult leaders who died with their followers during violent confrontations with authorities.

'Jeffs is charismatic. He is intellectual. He is not crazy. He is not paranoid.

'He is very serious about his religion,' Mr Parker said.

Despite the conflicting images, one thing is clear: Jeffs' four-year reign as head of the FLDS has been the most tumultuous in the secretive sect for 50 years.

His authoritarian rule has sparked internal conflict, which in turn has brought unwelcome scrutiny from law enforcement agencies that have have turned a blind eye to the sect's polygamy since a 1953 raid on the community ended in shambles.

Ironically, reported the LA Times, there is nothing physically imposing about Jeffs.

'He's tall and reedy with a quavering voice and, acquaintances say, an especially limp handshake,' reported the paper.
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http://newpaper.asia1.com.sg/news/story ... 99,00.html
 
B.C. polygamists claim persecution

Polygamists in Bountiful, B.C., say they're being persecuted by the RCMP and federal immigration officials.

One of the community leaders says he expects he'll soon be facing criminal charges, and three of his wives who are American citizens have been ordered out of the country.

The family members took the unusual step of inviting reporters into their 1,000-member community in southeastern British Columbia on Tuesday to talk about their concerns.

"It's a persecution as far as we're concerned," said Winston Blackmore, who answered reporters' question along with five of his wives outside their home in Bountiful.

Blackmore, 49, has more than 20 wives and at least 103 children.
One wife, Leah Barlow, said the RCMP came to the community a few weeks ago.

"They showed up on our doorstep and said, 'We need to talk to you.'

"We had the idea that we had nothing to hide and nobody told us we didn't have to talk to them … We didn't know this was all about gathering evidence against the person we love most. We are very angry and felt violated."

Police seized birth records and other documents, the Blackmore family claims.

The British Columbia attorney general's office has confirmed a police investigation is proceeding and says it should wrap up within weeks.

Bountiful was established in the late 1940s by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints – a breakaway sect of the Mormon Church. The official Mormon Church banned polygamy in 1890.

Blackmore said he expects to be charged with polygamy or abuse of authority. He said he can't understand why anyone would want to lay charges against him, given that many lawyers believe polygamy charges wouldn't stand up to a Charter of Rights and Freedoms challenge based on freedom of religion.

"A million and a half dollars, [a] five-year run to the Supreme Court of Canada – all when every single person knows, including the RCMP, that it would be a waste of time," Blackmore said.

But anti-polygamy activists say Canada's best-known polygamist has openly broken the law and should be charged.

That opinion is not shared by Ruth Lane, another of Blackmore's wives.

"Because of the pressure the activist groups have placed on the attorney general's office and the RCMP, we're now faced with the very real possibility that our children's father, and our partner, will be arrested," she said.

That isn't the family's only concern. Three of Blackmore's American wives were recently denied permission to stay in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds.

Edith Barlow, Martha Chatwin and Zelpha Chatwin have been ordered to leave the country, although they are married to a Canadian citizen and have 16 children among them, all of whom were born in Canada.

The family has been told the children can stay in Canada along with their father and his other wives.
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CBC News
 
I wonder if theya re cracking down on the more extreme fringes of the group?

4 Homes Raided in Polygamist Enclave

Agents seize evidence of alleged crimes by members of a sect in Colorado City, Ariz.

By David Kelly, Times Staff Writer
May 27, 2006

Law enforcement agents in Arizona investigating charges of underage marriage and sexual abuse raided four houses simultaneously in Colorado City, a polygamist enclave on the Arizona-Utah border.

Investigators, in the unusual show of force, seized boxes of records and personal belongings of members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who have been indicted on a variety of charges, including sexual conduct with a minor and conspiracy. Eight men are expected to stand trial in July.

The synchronized raids by four teams of law officers came Thursday, in the wake of increased public attention to allegations of mistreatment of women and children by members of the religious sect.

A series of Times reports two weeks ago detailed more than 50 years of slow and ineffective response by law enforcement and other public safety agencies in the face of widespread reports of abuse.

The FLDS, an offshoot of Mormonism, claims 10,000 members and is led by Warren Jeffs, 50, a fugitive on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list. He is accused of rape, arranging underage marriages and unlawful flight to avoid prosecution.

The Colorado City raids were led by the Mohave County Sheriff's Office, which sent in 16 deputies armed with search warrants naming an undisclosed number of targets.

Law enforcement officials Friday refused to detail what they sought in the warrants. They were believed to be seeking evidence, possibly including DNA samples, that could prove who had fathered children with underage mothers.

"The search warrants were part of an ongoing and continuing investigation of sexual abuse within the community," said Trish Carter, spokeswoman for the Mohave County Sheriff's Office. "It was without any incident or resistance, and it was related to the eight sexual abuse indictments," she said.

The raids were done at the same time to stop anyone from tipping others off to what was happening.

"It's a very tightknit community, and we wanted to prevent that," Carter said. She said the raid was unrelated to the nationwide search for Jeffs.

Colorado City and adjacent Hildale, Utah, are the largest polygamist communities in the U.S. There are other FLDS sect branches in South Dakota, Texas, Idaho, Colorado, Nevada, Mexico and Canada.

The sect's core beliefs include polygamy. Men are taught they cannot enter the highest levels of heaven without at least three wives.

One result has been years of underage marriages, including girls as young as 12 and 13 being wed to much older men. The sect's prophet, the fugitive Jeffs, is rumored to have as many as 72 wives.

The Times series earlier this month recounted allegations of widespread incest, sexual abuse of children and the systematic exile of hundreds of boys from the community. Local police were accused of operating as church enforcers rather than as administrators of the law.

After years of neglect, officials in Utah and Arizona have begun to crack down on the FLDS, seizing documents from their school, decertifying polygamous police officers and getting the FBI in on the search for Jeffs.

They also assigned Gary Engels, an investigator for the Mohave County attorney's office, to Colorado City. He has become a permanent presence in the town. It was Engels who put together evidence leading to the eight indictments and who organized Thursday's raid.

"I can't really say anything about it yet," Engels said after the raid.

But in interviews earlier this year, Engels acknowledged that the cases pending against the eight men could be an important test of whether justice finally had come to the desert enclave.

Whatever happens, Engels said, the eight indictments are only the beginning.

"I got eight more after that, and eight more after that," he said. "I'm just getting started."

The men facing trial all have multiple wives. Each has pleaded not guilty to the charges of sexual violations.

They include a former Colorado City police officer, Rodney Hans Holm, previously convicted in Utah and sentenced to jail for having sex with his then-16-year-old wife. He now faces three Arizona charges of sexual misconduct with a minor. Holm, 39, has three wives.

Randy Barlow, 33, was indicted on charges of sexual assault and sexual conduct with a minor.

The other six men face similar charges of sexual conduct with a minor and conspiracy to commit sexual conduct with a minor — in each case, stemming from allegations of sexual conduct with an underage wife.

David Romaine Bateman, 49, is alleged to have had sex with a 17-year-old girl; Terry Darger Barlow, 24, is accused of having sex with a girl, 15; Vergel Bryce Jessop, 46, was indicted on charges of having sex with a 17-year-old; Donald Robert Barlow, 50, is charged with having sex with a girl, 17.

Kelly Fischer, 48, and Dale Barlow, 48, were indicted on charges of sexual misconduct with a minor and conspiracy to commit sexual misconduct with a minor. No details of their cases were available. All eight are out on bail.

Their trials have been postponed twice and are expected to be held in July.

Engels would not discuss why the raids were conducted so late in the legal process, except to say: "It follows with the investigation we are doing."
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Source
 
Bosbaba said:
Qestia said:
Have any of you read "Under the Banner of Heaven" by Jon Krakauer. It gives a good, serious history of Mormonism while also covering these modern polygamist sects. I guess the LDS heads didn't like the book but I thought he did a good job of emphasizing that the polygamists have all been excommunicated.

Baptizing people (who are dead) without their consent is an abomination.
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The church has long emphasised that members can only do proxy baptisms for their own deceased ancestors. The practice of doing proxy baptisms for all and sundry (but dead) was discontinued many years ago.

The principle behind baptisms for the dead is that this is a ceremony that can only be carried out by the living, so those who have died, but have since chosen to accept this gospel, cannot undergo this first and fundamental rite of passage into the religion.

The living do the work for the dead - as we cannot know who will and who will not accept the gospel, the dead are then left to decide if they will accept or reject this work done on their behalf.
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Replying very late... but I still find it an adomination. How can they know their dead ancestors converted? My spouse has Mormon relatives and we are somewhat concerned that we will be forced to become Mormon after our demises.
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HoustonChronicle.com --
http://www.HoustonChronicle.com
| Section: National news

July 14, 2006, 6:10PM



Polygamist kin fined for hiding fugitive
By JON SARCHE Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press

DENVER — The younger brother of a polygamist sect leader was sentenced Friday to three years probation for hampering the FBI search for his fugitive sibling.

ADVERTISEMENT

Seth Steed Jeffs, of Hildale, Utah, was fined $2,500 in addition to the probation. He had pleaded guilty to a federal charge of concealing a fugitive and faced a possible six-month prison sentence.

Prosecutor Phil Brimmer asked for a three-month prison term, saying it would serve as a better deterrent. U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn, however, said he found Jeffs, 33, to be contrite and praised him for trying to remove himself from the sect.

"I must not and will not visit the sins of your fugitive brother on you," Blackburn said.

Jeffs was arrested Oct. 28 after a traffic stop in southern Colorado. During the stop, authorities found nearly $142,000 in cash, about $7,000 worth of prepaid debit and cell phone cards and his brother's personal records.

His brother, Warren Jeffs, 50, leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, was indicted in June on an Arizona charge of arranging a marriage between a 16-year-old girl and a married man, and on a federal charge of unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. He is also charged in Utah with two felony counts of rape as an accomplice, for allegedly arranging the marriage of a teenage girl to an older man in Nevada.

The FLDS Church, which embraces polygamy, split from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when the mainstream Mormon Church disavowed plural marriage more than 100 years ago.

FBI agent Andrew Stearns testified that Seth Jeffs said after his arrest that he didn't know where the elder Jeffs was, but wouldn't reveal his whereabouts if he did.

In a brief statement in court, Seth Jeffs said, "I knew what I did was wrong as I was doing it, but I didn't realize the severity of what I was doing."
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Interesting show tonight on Channel 4 but it felt a little thin in the end with the hunt for Jeffs just being a hook to hang it on.

The Man With 80 Wives


Warren Jeffs is the leader of a polygamous sect who is rumoured to have 80 wives, more than 200 children and some 10,000 followers. He's also on the FBI's most wanted list. David Rosenberg explores the issues behind the man and his sect.

The American government justifies its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and its hostility to Iran’s leaders, by saying that it is trying to rid the world of fundamentalism and establish democracy. If so, then perhaps it needs to focus on fundamentalists much closer to home.

In Channel 4's The Man with 80 Wives, journalist Sanjiv Battacharya unveils a self-defined fundamentalist sect whose leader speaks in apocalyptic terms, rules through fear, and tramples on the human rights of adults and children – deep in America’s heartlands.

Separated from society

This sect lives in segregated communities, isolated from a society whose values it rejects. Its members eschew radios and televisions. The children dress with extreme modesty and are forbidden to dance or to play basketball or computer games. Young girls are coerced into early marriage and men are encouraged to have several wives.

These are not Taliban enclaves but tightly knit communities scattered across North America – in Arizona, Texas, South Dakota, Idaho and over the Canadian border in British Columbia – practising a fringe variety of Christianity. And in contrast to most other religious leaders, Warren Jeffs, the leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints (FLDS), is on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list.

Where is he now?

In the film, Sanjiv Bhattacharya searches for the elusive Warren Jeffs who assumed control of the sect in 2002 after the death of his father, Rulon Jeffs. Warren Jeffs is believed to have accumulated assets of $110 million from a community that regards him as a saviour but fears his wrath if they step out of line or question his edicts.

He has not been seen in public for more than a year. The FBI considers him 'armed and dangerous' and believes he may be travelling with armed bodyguards. He faces charges from former sect members of sexual abuse and of arranging marriages of under-age girls. Increasingly, young men are being expelled and ex-communicated from his sect for minor transgressions in an attempt, observers believe, to reduce sexual competition. This means more young women are available for older male polygamists, or more accurately 'polygynists', since, in these communities, a man may have more than one wife but a woman can only have one husband.

Yet until his actions became really extreme, this community, with its unusual practices, was tolerated and largely left to its own devices. For 75 years the FDLS has been based in the towns of Hildale and Colorado City, which straddle the Arizona-Utah border and are together known as Shortcreek, where its members are entrenched in the local institutions such as the police, schools and hospitals.

Extreme ideas

The FLDS broke away from the mainstream Church of Latter Day Saints – the Mormons – in 1890, when the Mormons outlawed their longstanding practice of polygamy. The Mormons have, nevertheless, been criticised by other Christians for certain attitudes they retained. It was not until 1978 that the Mormon Church allowed black members into its priesthood, and as a result of this decision the FDLS distanced itself even further from them. Warren Jeffs has stated that, 'The black race is the people through which the devil has always been able to bring evil unto the earth.'

Such racist ideas sit comfortably with the FDLS’s attitudes to gays and women. Jeffs describes homosexuality as 'the worst evil act you can do, next to murder', and reminds males that, 'you can’t go to heaven and be a god unless you have more than one wife'. Women are told to say this prayer each morning: 'I want to do your will, Father, through obeying my husband or my father or our prophet.'

In Jeffs’ communities women are commodities, taken away from transgressors and redistributed to males whom Jeffs considers righteous.

Jeffs has stated, apocalyptically, that God 'is about to stretch forth his hand and sweep the wicked off this land'. Coupled with his increasing desire to build temples in secluded compounds, experts in religious extremism such as Brian Levin from California State University fear that Jeffs’ community might emulate suicide cults like David Koresh’s Branch Davidians in Waco.

Fearful followers

Sanjiv Bhattacharya’s journey raises disturbing issues about the way in which narcissistic and charismatic individuals can utilise religion and ordinary people’s genuine faith to control whole communities and their economic resources. But the deeper question it evokes concerns the followers more than the leader. Why do his followers give consent to such oppressive, abusive and exploitative practices? Bhattacharya can find interviewees who criticise Jeffs for taking his father’s ideas to extremes, but they are unwilling to challenge the basic ideas, principles and values that underpin his mini-theocracy.

Lori Chatwin stood by her husband when he was excommunicated from the sect and is openly critical of women being treated as commodities. She states that 10 wives for one man are 'too many'. Yet she still believes that four wives 'is the optimum number for a family'.

The FDLS, under Warren Jeffs, employs the same techniques that cults, or 'new religious movements' as they are often called, have used in different countries to maintain obedience: a strict regime of punishment and rewards; isolation from the outside world and its cultural products and influences such as books, radio and TV; an emphasis on the wickedness of those beyond the bounds of the community; and the removal of freedoms, so lack of freedom, and even fear of freedom, becomes the norm.

The more reclusive Jeffs has become, the more his status as a mystical prophet, located between the community and God, has grown. God talks directly to Jeffs, his followers believe, and he passes on his revelation through tapes played at community gatherings and in members’ houses.

The bottom line

The film also reveals the more practical economic basis of the community Jeffs presides over. Businesses in Shortcreek and the land on which community members live are owned by a trust called the United Effort Plan (UEP). Members tithe 10% of their income to the UEP in monthly payments and feel under moral pressure to commit more funds if possible. Punishment by Warren Jeffs for questioning his arbitrary demands can lead to eviction and financial ruin for a family. Growing up within such a system hardly prepares people for the social and economic rough and tumble outside their closed community.

In a land where wealth and free market ideology are the most powerful secular gods, it may be that the earthly laws of economics are as important as supposedly heavenly laws in enforcing obedience and subservience among Warren Jeffs’ isolated, vulnerable and fearful community.


There's further discussion, information and resources about similar issues at The Kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart.

------------------
Find out more

Southern Poverty Law Center
www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?sid=342
Organisation which monitors extremist and hate groups in the USA. This page quotes Warren Jeffs' harsh opinions on blacks, women, gays, violence and the end of the world

Polygamist Groups
www.rickross.com/groups/polygamy.html
A section on the website of Rick Alan Ross, a US-based consultant and lecturer in the area of destructive cults, controversial groups and movements, and research about mind control theories.

Hope for the Child Brides
http://childbrides.org/
A non-profit organisation dedicated to assisting survivors of abuse within polygamous relationships on their journey to personal freedom. The website includes lots of background information and personal accounts.
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www.channel4.com/culture/microsites/C/c ... wives.html
 
US polygamy sect leader arrested

Warren Jeffs faces charges of sexual misconduct with minors
A polygamist sect leader who has been on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted List has been arrested in Las Vegas.
Warren Jeffs, 50, was pulled over by a Nevada Highway Patrol on Monday along with his brother and one of his wives.

He went into hiding in May after being charged in Arizona with sexual misconduct for allegedly arranging marriages between minors and older men.

Mr Jeffs leads the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) in Arizona and Utah.

Warren Jeffs, who is reputed to have 70 wives, took over the leadership of the church after his father Rulon died in 2002.

Road to heaven

The 10,000-strong FLDS split from the Mormon Church more than a century ago after the latter renounced polygamy.

The sect dominates the towns of Colorado City, in Arizona, and Hildale, Utah, less than a mile away.

Polygamy is illegal in the US, but the authorities have reportedly been reluctant to confront the FLDS for fear of sparking a tragedy similar to the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian sect in Waco, Texas, which led to the deaths of around 80 members.

However, correspondents say the church is coming under increasing pressure from authorities in Utah and Arizona.


http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5296196.stm
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Man who had 80 wives and 250 children arrested on rape charges
by BARRY WIGMORE Last updated at 18:20pm on 29th August 2006 Warren Jeffs, the ruthless leader of a breakaway branch of the Mormon Church who had 80 wives and 250 children was arrested today after a five-month manhunt.
Jeffs, 50, who was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list with a $100,000 price on his head, was arrested at a routine traffic stop in Las Vegas.
He was wanted on charges of polygamy, child rape, kidnapping, and tax evasion.
The FBI said they were 'enormously relieved' that he had been arrested without incident.
They feared that the charismatic Jeffs might provoke a Waco or Ruby Ridge-type siege and shootout if he was cornered in one of the many polygamous communities he has set up in Utah, Arizona and Texas.
Jeffs took over the Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints - known as FDLS - when his 92-year-old father, Rulon, died in 2002.
The 20-year rule of father and son had grown from a small breakaway Mormon group living in an enclave on the Arizona-Utah border into a massive cult with up to 50,000 followers and more than Pounds 60 million in cash and property.
Jeffs preached that every man must have at least three wives to achieve the highest glory in Heaven.
He also taught that women could only get into Heaven at the invitation of satisfied husbands.
He ruled his followers with an iron hand, punishing offenders by taking their wives and children away from them and giving them to other men.
He was also the only person among his followers allowed to perform marriages.
But authorities became alarmed when they discovered Jeffs was choosing younger and younger brides for his men. Some girls were said to be only 10 years old when they were forced into arranged marriages.
The net began to close on Jeffs when a group of women rebelled and ran away to give evidence to a grand jury probing his activities.
Social service departments in the region around FDLS stockades also told investigators they were having to deal with an increasing number of 'Lost Boys" - youths in their early teens who were homeless after being kicked out.
Jeffs often used the excuse that the boys had been listening to rock music to excommunicate them.
But police were told the real reason was that he was running out of women. He wanted to reduce the number of men so his closest followers could have more wives.
Today leaders of the mainstream Mormon Church of Latter Day Saints emphasised that Jeffs had nothing to do with them.
The official church abandoned polygamy in 1890 as a condition for Utah to join the United States.
The FBI believed that Jeffs was able to stay one jump ahead of them because his followers included a handful of local police officers who tipped him off. One policeman has been charged with polygamy. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/a ... ge_id=1770
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