Thank Heavens, Texas seems to be doing a great job protecting the children from the Mormon polygamist compound. Ok, ok, I know, Mormons like to be referred to as Latter Day Saints, but the term saint really doesn’t apply here. If the Dark Side has saints, these are they.
They say they’re not evil, they are Christians, kinda ramped up.
They may or may not be Christians. Christians do horrible things sometimes. But using girls and women as sexual and reproductive slaves is evil; it’s the antithesis of Christianity. Period. Teaching your boys to do the same and thus perpetuating the crime through the generations and spreading it by increasing the number of people involved is, well, evil. It’s beyond wrong.
What’s the responsibility of the adult women who are involved? Good question. Do they actively participate in teaching their own sons to rape? They are certainly involved in teaching them the attitudes that condone and encourage it. If someone has been brainwashed and tortured for their entire lives, would they be considered mentally incompetent to stand trial? Are they legally crazy? Are they insane? Is it possible to rehabilitate them? Is that deprogramming? It is a cult, after all.
It’s an ethical conundrum from my point of view. There are, however, hundreds of lawyers who have volunteered to serve as these women’s lawyers. I believe the law requires each woman to have her own lawyer, and since there are 416 kids involved and 139 women followed them out of the compound, that’s quite a few lawyers.
The YFZ (Yearning for Zion) Ranch in Texas, where these kids are from, and its supporting/controlling parent group based primarily in Utah and Arizona have received over 1.5 million in U.S. taxpayer money for their government contracting businesses, while their workers have received little or no pay. The leaders, one of whom is in jail right now for arranging and forcing the rape and “marriage” of a 14 year old girl by her 19 year old cousin, was reportedly personally taking $50,000 – $100,000 of the profits from those businesses each month. His workers thought they were working for free to earn their spiritual redemption. The Mormon women I know think they are using their wombs and their lives to redeem the world, too. They happily give all of the men in their lives all of their power. The only way they can effect change is to influence/manipulate those men. Mormon women have no vote in their church, and those who are devout have no voice in their community, either. They only sanctioned way for them to influence their world is through compliant slavery, which they see as being loving stewards of Christ.
According to a Fox News report, the “Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints practice polygamy in arranged marriages, sometimes between underage girls and older men. The group has thousands of followers in two side-by-side towns in Arizona and Utah…..Men, women and children have been swept up in raids that took place in 1935, 1944 and 1953.
“It’s been all through history, ” said Brenda, the mother of two. “We were just here trying to live a peaceful, happy, sweet life. We don’t understand why we can’t do this freely.”” (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,351389,00.html)
Hey, Brenda, there’s nothing peaceful about rape or the lifetime of reliving it through flashbacks.
I am glad Texas is protecting these children from the cult which created them. I pray that the children are healed and placed with emotionally healthy families who can help them to adjust and grow well, to undo the harm they’ve suffered, seen, and been taught, to be good people who respect and treat themselves and others well, and who think clearly with their own heads and hearts and not just accept things that don’t make sense.
What’s the take-away for us?
- Use your own decision-making abilities. If you feel wishy-washy about them, get some coaching that will teach you how to access what you truly want and give you tools to make it happen in your life.
- Combine your head and your heart when making choices, which is easier for some people than others.
- If you really feel confused and need to talk to someone, talk to someone who has no personal stake in what’s going on (some of these Mormon women probably talk amongst themselves, maybe with their priests, and those people are brainwashed to teach the questioners that they’re wrong).
- If you know someone is harming children, it is your responsibility to help the children. How to do that will depend on the circumstances. Don’t worry about the adults; their consequences and karma are their own to deal with. They made the choice to do these things; the kids didn’t have an option.
- Children love their parents no matter what; don’t blame the kid, and don’t be surprised if they defend their parents for even the most horrendous things. Don’t be surprised if they feel guilty for betraying their parents.
- It is finally okay in our society to confront and stop child abuse. Do your part.
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