I don't usually write diaries. Forgive the fact that this one will seem somewhat amatuerish compared to many others but this story needs to be out there. According to CNN Officials in Texas raided a Fundamental polygamist reteat in Texas after hearing reports of child brides. The group is called The Fundamental Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
More after the jump
According to CNN A 16 year old girl called a family violence hotline on March 29th.
Tipped that girls as young as 13 were being forced to enter "spiritual marriages," have sex and bear children, Texas officials raided an isolated polygamist retreat in West Texas, according to court documents released Tuesday.
...
The teen bride said she was in an abusive "spiritual" marriage to an older sect member, the documents stated. She reported that she was the man's seventh wife and had been beaten and choked.
She said she had been hospitalized in the past with cracked ribs and hoped to escape the abuse by faking a medical condition.
This is absolutely unbelievable. I'm actually having a hard time wrapping my head around it. Making 13 year old girls get married and have babies is absolutely sickening. How can this sort of thing happen in this day and age?
In addition to the children, 133 women have left the ranch voluntarily and joined the children in a shelter in San Angelo -- about 45 miles north of the ranch, Meisner said. No men were allowed, she said.
Future court hearings will determine whether there is enough evidence to keep the children from returning to the ranch. A hearing is scheduled April 17. The children will be appointed lawyers and legal guardians in about two weeks, Meisner said.
In other words, there's a chance that these kids will have to go back to the ranch.
Please forgive the shortness of this diary because I'm REALLY new at this but this story needs to be out there. I've had some problems with my own spirtuality but using a Church to commit pedophelia is beyond the pale. There are some truly scary people out there. Tell me if there's anything I need to do to improve this diary as this is only the second one I've ever written one
Was this story worth reading?
Recommending and sharing stories helps us decide which stories are mostimportant to show our readers.
Keyboard navigation:
- ( L ) Recommend
- ( r ) Reply
- ( p ) Parent
- ( o ) Open/Close
- ( j ) Next
- ( k ) Prev
- ( 1 ) First Comment
- ( 2 ) Last Comment
- ( J ) Next Unread
- ( K ) Prev Unread
- ( esc ) Unfocus Text Field
- ( P ) Edit/Preview
- ( S ) Submit
- ( c ) Cancel
People have used religion in the past to do some truly scary things. I'm having a hard time distinguishing from fundamentalist and cult nowadays.
From Wiki:
Cult typically refers to a cohesive social group devoted to beliefs or practices that the surrounding culture considers outside the mainstream, with a notably positive or negative popular perception.
(Emphasis mine.)
It's nothing to do with what they believe, or the number of followers, or how long their belief system has existed. It's all down to the public mores of the time. And public perception. Christianity was seen as a sect in its early days (and the author Isaac Asimov, in his autobiography "I, Asimov: A Memoir" says the religion would have been nothing if not for the work of one of the saints in future years).
And seeing as the word has a negative connotation, it can be used to somehow absolve the notion of religion being synonymous with these kinds of atrocities.
In the same way that God helps hurricane victims (but Mother Nature's fury was to blame), so it is that religions do the good stuff and sects do the bad stuff.
I refuse to use wordplay of this kind to define my reality. If someone says they have set up a religion, then I will say that they said it. And honor their decision to act well or ill in the name of religion as a result. It was, after all, their free will and choice to do so.
... And honor their decision to act well or ill in the name of religion as a result. It was, after all, their free will and choice to do so.
In the context of the diary, do you think that these children had any choice in this matter? Do you honor the decision of the adults in this community to do what they've done to these children? Do you really honor someone's decision to do ill "in the name of religion"?
Don't take my questions wrong; I'm really not sure I understand what you were saying here.
Unfortunately, we like to think we're somehow smarter than generations past. More advanced. Somehow fairer, better at solving squabbles.
But we are, to borrow the words from a song by The Shins, "a brutal kind".
The best you can do? Voltaire's Candide had it best. Tend to your own garden, your own life and affairs.
If I recall, the author discussed this sect in the book. It is the worst kind of cult, and should be broken apart and its members either jailed or harassed, their property taken and their buildings burned to the ground. No excuse for these kinds of people.
It's interesting - I saw the prosecutor on television the other day, and she said something to the effect of: "We don't stand for this kind of thing in Texas." Previously, this group had been in Arizona and Utah and, from what I gather, relied on at least some small amount of protection or benign neglect from the authorities in those states. They made a mistake when they moved to Texas.
A lot of these kind of groups are sanctioned by a lot of the authorities. Bush himself has given his stamp of approval on some VERY scary Churches. But this is just beyond sickening.
the account of the murder of an FLDS wife is chilling. One of the two men involved was her brother-in-law. Before he killed her, he took the life of his toddler niece because "it's God's judgement that you leave this world". The FLDS gets away with it in Arizona and Colorado because they literally run the town-as both local government and law enforcement. If they'd been left alone in Texas,they very may well have tried to take over the political structure of San Angelo.
What really worries me is the authorities haven't found the girl yet. She may have been sent to another FLDS compound in order to keep her quiet.
This group has been in the news for years. Their leader is in jail for arranging marriages between child brides and much older men. young men have been thrown out of the group to decrease competition for young girls.
There is nothing that has not been known already about the abuse of children, and I fail to understand why the state waited until they had a so-called 911 call to go in there.
It's beyond pathetic that the authorities knew about this cult for so long and did nothing.
that would be bad
Carolyn Jessop, in this story:
"I think it’s a form of pedophilia hiding behind a religion as a protection," Carolyn Jessop told TODAY’s Matt Lauer from Salt Lake City on Tuesday. "There’s just a desire to control and manipulate and torture people, and religion is just used as the cover."
There are a few other interviews out there as well, besides this one. Other quotes, like "women were just baby-making machines" really get your attention. I'd like to know how it is that our laws allow groups like this, like the David Koresh group, to exist - these massive compounds with hundreds of members who have little contact with the outside world, rife with rape and incest and polygamy - just because they claim to have certain ideas about a mythical superbeing.
At the very least, the children have to be educated in schools. One of the interviewees was a middle-aged woman who had a hard time re-integrating into society because she only had a 4th grade education.
These are domestic human rights violations.
Because they begin to take over all governmental positions. This is the mistake they made when they moved to Texas where they did not have the protection. When they lived in Arizona, members of the sect were in positions of power - school principal, sheriff, etc.
Like that cult that Hillary and some real assholes on the right have joined.
that religious extremism always results in the abuse of children?
It abuses those who are the least capable of defending themselves: the poor, the uneducated, the infirm, the elderly, societal outcasts. What surprise that it would abuse children as well?
is "Leaving the Saints". This woman finally gets up the nerve to confront her father who sexually abused her (and I think her sisters too) for years. She and her husband are forced from the LDS for this and it just tears her up inside. She loved the feeling of community,but she couldn't take the silence about the abuse any more.
congregation needing an exorcism
Or the most socially prominent. Or the most powerful. Or the one with the most guns.
THey are easily manupulated because one of the most basic needs of young humans is to have someone who loves them. Therefore children are pliant, trying to acheive that love.
Children who have that trust violated always have deep psychological problems that they carry through their lives.
Fundamentalist Church in Texas leads to Raid because of Child Brides
and
they don't save the children by burning the compound to the ground.
..not Texas authorities. From what I can tell of this story, the Feds are not involved.
in the Utah papers. While the majority were cheering Texas and wishing Utah (Hilldale) and Arizona (Colorado City) would follow suit.
Others were angry at that the church of FLDS had it's religious rights abridged (they feel), that the Texas authorities were using "Waco" tactics, that the word of one 16 year old could not be trusted... etc, etc. etc.
One even said that if these people had been Muslims they would have been left alone. something tell me that if they had been Muslims all everyone who had problems with the raid would have been cheering it on.
In any case I have been following the FLDS for quite sometime and I am very happy that Texas stepped up where Arizona and Utah have failed to act to protect these girls. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
You need to read and listen to Carolyn Jessup
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/... She talks about how her ex-husband would go about the abusive process of "Breaking Babies" (a form of water torture) and that exhusband was/is the leader of that Texas group.
But, if they're 13 or so, it's no longer pedophilia.
It's funny, in that of all the stories I've read about these people, at least half make a point of condemning polygamy in general. You know, "even among adults"... wish I could remember the full quote.
People seem incapable of separating out what is wrong about their practices from what is inconsequential.
There's a separate word for those who like underage girls 13 and up. Hebephilia? Can't remember.
you can also listen to her here
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
