Oh, my. Warren Jeffs certainly has a flair for exaggeration. That’s how he described his 12-year-old “spiritual bride’s” response when he had sex with her. On tape. On tape. He recorded his sexual encounters with underage girls as part of his “priestly records”, and now they’re being played back in court, while he’s raging and protesting.
He’s also on tape patiently explaining to twelve girls on how they have to work together to sexually satisfy him. I think we’re saying the real motivations of patriarchal religions being exposed rather nakedly in this courtroom.
Also, Jeffs is rather angry about it all. He got a message directly from God about what will happen if they don’t let him go.
“I, the Lord God of heaven, call upon the court to cease this open prosecution against my pure, holy way,” Jeffs read. If it fails to do so, “I will send a scourge upon the counties of prosecutorial zeal to make humbled by sickness and death.”
I don’t think the trial is going well for him. It’s not really a good strategy to announce, after you’re caught on tape screwing a 12 year old girl, that you have “pure, holy ways”.
It’s funny how the supposed all powerful creator of the universe can’t just teleport Jeffs, or remove bars, or give Jeffs the strength to muscle his way to freedom. Yahweh, apparently, doesn’t roll like that; he’s more of a ‘make threats of scourges against nations’ kind of deity.
He recorded the crime? Now that’s getting caught with your pants down!
He also threatened the judge with Mormon curses, entered teh books of Mormon as evidence and called followers as witnesses to testify that they found joy in his religion.
I feel sick.
From the second link:
The reporter is either one twisted individual or really needs to pay more attention to what he writes. Does that website not have editors?
I really am going to be sick.
Oh, the poor persecuted man!
He was doing Gods work.
Think of the chil.. Oh, wait. Forget it.
@The Chimp
I can almost defend that useage. I have been following the Jeffs case, because he is seemingly dead set on making as big of a clown out of himself as possible. So it is a mix of WTF!? and disgust.
@Ing
I don’t doubt that the WTF?!? is strong with this one, but given the sensitivity of the case, the reporter really should have taken more care with his choice of words.
Goddammit, Ing, shut the fuck up, you bastard. I have several friends who are clowns, and I will not have you defaming them thus!
Please use “assclown” in the future. Asshat or assjacket also works. Although those are unfair to donkeys and clothing.
there’s plenty of words an phrases that would express the sentiment better than “exciting”; personally, I favor “morbidly fascinating”
What a sick, sick fuck.
I generally reserve the idiom “have sex with” for sexual activity between consenting adults.
In this case, where a 12-year old child is involved, I would use the word “rape” or “forced sex.”
Just wow.
Also, I like the “Jebus hates you” icon.
Agreed
Either way as a journalist they’re supposed to take a neutral stance. So wouldn’t “Eventful” have been better?
The existence of clowns removes the necessity to defame them.
No clowns were funny. That was the whole purpose of a clown. People laughed at clowns, but only out of nervousness. The point of clowns was that, after watching them, anything else that happened seemed enjoyable.” ~Terry Pratchett, Men at Arms
Warren Jeffs’ defense is not very new though. “The Family”, AKA “The Christian Mafia”, have a very similar stance. They believe that they are as successful as they are in life because they were personally blessed by Jesus and God, and are therefore able to do whatever they want regardless of the laws of legality or the bible. Supporting Nazism and dictators are in their past, and they’re perfectly fine with that.
@Chimp: Sadly, there is a decent chance that “exciting day” was added by an editor.
Jeffs seem to be pretty proud of his apparently godlike dick, that is positively cosmic in its sublime ability to satisfy and that all womwn / children worship at his bed er, shrine.
Jeffs seems to be so so proud of his prick of power and reveals in its limtless potency. Where he is going I do hope his fat ass is able to take similar divine dicks.
I wish I believed in Hell, he’d be a prime candidate for the hot seat.
Instead, we have to handle him ourselves. So do we:
a) kill him
b) spend a lot of money to keep him in prison for a long time
c) send him to a prison where we know he’ll be murdered
d) ‘treat’ him for his obvious mental disorder, potentially releasing him once he’s ‘cured’.
There’s no good answers here…so I’m voting for the ‘bullet in the brain + shallow grave’ response. It puts the fewest people in danger.
So, a dozen of the Prophet’s trusted, male, inner circle were in the room for the “sealing.” That makes it so much more “exciting.”
My brother and I were in Short Creek several years ago. We were doing research for a Utah Wilderness Areas book. One of the trailheads for a trail leading up onto a plateau, a plateau with a distant view of the peaks of Zion N.P., was on the edge of town. We were stopped in a fake-friendly, half-threatening way by local law enforcement. Women in long dresses, and sporting identical hairstyles, ushered their children away from our vehicle. Some of them were running, pulling on their children’s hands to get them away from the Devil. We were definitely in WTF mode.
At the time, I assumed that most of the teenaged girls were babysitting younger siblings. Now I know that they were probably shepherding their own children. Almost babies bearing babies.
Kenny Ham would make a fine jail buddy…if, of course, the court considers his tacky little ‘message’ from ‘gawd’ to be of sufficient merit in order to dismiss the case.
In which case Jeffs is home free in celebratory mood and looking to commune with a girl child for ‘gawds’ greater glory while being clapped on and encouraged by the court!
But in the meantime the whole of the book of Mormon is too be a relevant and important defense of child rape.
Might be interesting how that pans out for him!
Not looking good at this stage…but ‘gawd’ moves in ways mysteriosa!
But of course the bottom line of Mormon inc. will be to claim “no true Mormon He”….when of course we all know that he is probably the finest example thereof!
I see no evidence that Jeffs is actually insane.
“the Christian Mafia”? as opposed to what, precisely? The other Christian Mafia?
Why does the Jesus icon remind me of George Carlin whenever I see it?
I actually think the alias of The Family is The Fellowship
Jeebus –
Probably the movie “Dogma”
…No words…only pure, white-hot rage…
My accountant always used to say that there are only 2 kinds of people in hell – those who were caught in the act and those who kept records.
Some people defending Warren Jeffs. This is from the comments below the Daily Beast article:
Consider this: there’s an entire colony of adults who think like the commenter who posted that example of poor reasoning and even less perspective. And, of course, they would bring gay marriage into the argument.
Ing said: “
”
Finding a 12-year old girl sexually attractive is not the sign of a healthy mind.
That’s the one. I was thinking of a book that I’d read recently on the topic regarding them (Jeff Sharlet’s book ‘The Family’, I think it was), and “Christian Mafia” was the term which really stood out in my mind from that book.
I know that Warren Jeffs isn’t part of that group, but the mentality sure is similar enough.
Coverage in the Salt Lake Tribune includes this:
This staring business, wherein Jeffs fixes his baleful gaze, would be recognizable to his flock as communing with God or with the Holy Spirit. Turning his gaze on the prosecutors and the jury would be the equivalent of passing on God’s judgement, condemning them in other words. What looks fucking insane to us, makes sense in terms of the act he’s playing.
Throughout the trial, the prosecution has reiterated that the case is not about “religious persecution” but about sex with underaged girls.
Other details: Some of Jeff’s wives were present when the 12-year-old girl was raped. At the end, when Jeff’s concludes intercourse with the phrase, “In the name of Jesus Christ, amen,” three female voices can be heard replying, “Amen.”
Many mormons and ex-mormons have commented online that Jeffs is playing more to his group of believers than to the court. He is thinking of his legacy as a Prophet.
That’s why Jeffs called an FLDS man to speak as a defense witness for him, proclaiming on the stand that there can be only one Living Prophet of God on earth, and that man is Warren Jeffs. Jeffs seems to think that if he can establish his prophethood, all charges will be dropped. And/or that failing to get the charges dropped, he will at least retain his control over the FLDS cult. He’s been successful at that so far, ruling the roost from a jail cell since 2006
Not screwing. Raping.
Shorter Jeffs: God told me I could rape 12 year old girls. I’m only doing God’s work. It’s God that’s a pervert, not me.
It’s funny how the supposed all powerful creator of the universe can’t just teleport Jeffs, or remove bars, or give Jeffs the strength to muscle his way to freedom. Yahweh, apparently, doesn’t roll like that; he’s more of a ‘make threats of scourges against nations’ kind of deity.
It is all about that freedom of choice, if the all powerful creator helps Jeffs escape then we are not responsible for our actions. This way, if we let him go we made the choice to let him go. This same argument is being applied to the 12 year olds he is
marryingraping. They have a choice and choose to bemarriedraped.This way, if the all powerful creator wipes out some towns in his rage at Jeffs mistreatment it is our responsibility.
Or God needs glasses
This story sickens me to no end. I hope the jury comes back with guilty and gives the max one could be given for as many counts of rape as possible and to run consecutively (one after the other) so he essentially dies…
On wait, this is in Texas? Texas has a wonderful add on to “Life” we have “Life + 1 day” which means the corpse can’t be removed from the complex until 24 hours of death have elapsed.
Pacal:
Let’s not be making with the rape jokes, k?
I’ve been trying to find a sufficiently witty or sarcastic way to express the rage I feel at this kind of abuse of power by an adult and religious leader to create his own freakish rape harem fantasy. It’s awful that in a country where we openly condemn sex trafficking and sexual abuse of children, people are actually defending this shit because… God? The level of delusion it takes to harp on consenting adults in a relationship and compare it to this is staggering. And yet so typical, it’s depressing that it’s not as shocking as it once was for me.
There really isn’t a snarky comment I can make that wouldn’t just undermine the sheer disgust I feel at Jeffs’ crimes. The only good that can come of this story is keeping him from ever going near another girl ever again. I can only say I’m impressed with the jury for managing to sit through this shit and continue the trial. I hope they’re given frequent breaks for nausea.
And the trial comes to its inevitable conclusion: guilty on both counts.
I LOATHE this guy. LOATHE him.
I find what he’s been doing to be sadly common in Xtian churches of various descriptions, as well. For instance, Southern Baptists have an ongoing problem with this kind of thing, and then there’s the Catholic Church.
Religiousity and belief in traditional gender roles are notorious predictive factors in sexual abuse of children.
http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=EJ564932&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=EJ564932
Just a quick quibble, PZ:
This deranged subhuman was not “screwing” a 12-year old girl. He was raping her.
There are still some commenters on the Salt Lake Tribune website defending Warren Jeffs.
A commenter who uses the handle cia_ran_9_11 posted “How can anything be proven by vague tapes?”
The nym “cia_ran_9_11” represents just one of the wild conspiracy theories that found the polygamist colony to be a fertile bed. Many of the polygamists don’t believe that man ever walked on the moon.
A consortium of other polygamists has come out with a statement of condemnation, saying that Warren Jeffs twisted their similar religious beliefs to allow for “spiritual marriage” to young girls.
A recent court case in Canada brought out statistical details, as well as personal testimonies, showing that polygamist colonies inevitable move the age of marriage downward for females.
Mainstream mormons are, for the most part, not defending Warren Jeffs. Most of them are trying to ignore the entire situation, and some are doing what they can to put distance between the LDS and the FLDS.
Here’s an example:
Someone pointed out that Utah and Arizona have been negligent in policing abuses within polygamist groups, and that when they are forced to recognize abuse, they often give the perpetrator a slap on the wrist:
Kelly Fischer married step daughter at 15 – 45 days in jail
Dan Barlow Jr. sexually abused 5 daughters – 3 days in jail
Rod Holms sexually abused his wife’s 16 year old sister impregnating her 3 times by 19. – 1 year to be served only at night time.
John Daniel Kingston for beating his daughter unconscious for trying to get out of a relationship with her uncle – 28 days in jail one for every blow.
When I was in Short Creek (Hilldale/Colorado City), I didn’t see much thanks to be ushered out by local law enforcement. The next day, when my brother and I were looking for another approach to the area where we wanted to do some hiking, we came across another polygamist colony.
This group was on the Canaan Mountain plateau. They’re hidden in a juniper/pinyon pine forest, not far from Coral Pink Sand Dunes. This plateau is the top of the ramparts that rise above Short Creek. The women dress the same as those in Short Creek. I don’t if anyone other than the polygamists in Short Creek know that they’re there.
We came across the colony by accident as we drove some of the 4-wheel-drive, sandy roads (“roads” is a generous description) that cross the plateau. We were looking for, and found, a steep trail leading into otherwise-inaccessible Paranunuweap Canyon. On the way, we turned up an unmarked two-track and, while several women and flocks of children fled, one brave woman came over to our vehicle to ask us if we needed directions. She said we were on private property and would have to leave.
A few years later, we went back to the same area, and this time the side road leading to the polygamist colony was marked with a “Do Not Enter” sign, a “Private Propety” sign, and a metal gate.
There are many people in Utah who have family members in both churches, FLDS and LDS. This probably complicates prosecution of offenses.
This makes me sick. Lynna’s post even more so.
The 12 year old girl was just barely 12. She had been 12 for one month when Jeffs raped her.
Here’s a CNN video in which Flora Jessop and Elissa Wall are interviewed. Both women escaped the colony.
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2011/08/03/drew.flds.women.hln
I remember when Warren Jeffs was arrested and feeling a sense of happiness. I don’t usually take joy in the misfortune of other human beings, but I had recently read Krakauer’s excellent Under the Banner of Heaven which contained a lengthy description of the Jeffs’s disgusting little world out West. The amount of religious brainwashing and peer pressure out there made me ill. Jeffs deserves to spend every single day of the rest of his miserable life locked up in a deep dark hole, with the key hopelessly lost for all eternity. And here’s a tip, Warren, recording sexual encounters with girls the nation in which you live deem “too young for sex with grown men” is creepy and leads to nothing good.
More details from the trial:
“In documenting what took place the night the recording was made, Jeffs wrote that the girl ‘experienced a heavenly session with us and obtained a greater testimony.’ He said he was directing another of his wives to take the recording of his ‘training’ with the girl to a variety of FLDS settlements so others could learn from it . . .
“In another written excerpt, Jeffs says, ‘Though 12 years old, she has advanced quickly and got close. And she is being prepared to be a strength in the heavenly sessions.’
“[Texas Ranger Nick] Hanna testified previously that ‘getting close’ is how Jeffs refers to having sex.”
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2011/08/04/20110804warren-jeffs-prosecution-closes-defense-begins.html#ixzz1U62fS7UW
Oh, yeah, I meant to mention this detail earlier. Jeffs alluded to the civil rights struggle and the era of Martin Luther King during one his speeches/sermons to the court.
I got a kick out of this sentence in the Deseret News coverage:
“Jeffs introduced as evidence the Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price, attempting to link the offshoot FLDS religion to the early history of the LDS faith.”
OK… one more time. Let’s see if I can get a post to, well, post…
Umm, there’s a reason Jeffs was on trial (And apparently now convicted):
Rape is wrong.
Period
Full-Stop
End-of-story
Jeffs committed horrific acts and to protect society, he needs to be incarcerated. Since U.S. jails make just about zero effort to rehabilitate prisoners, it’s probably best that he’s there for the rest of his life. Sadly, he’ll still be a danger to society, because I’m sure he’ll be able to communicate with his followers and inspire them to perpetuate his philosophy of predatory perversity as sacrament.
And why do they call these people an “offshoot” of Mormonism? Isn’t the “mainstream” Mormon church an offshoot of them? It’s a bit like calling Catholicism an offshoot of the CoE. FFS, John Smith had 31 wives and Brigham Fucking Young had more than 50. And frankly, I’d have absolutely no problem with that. Polygamy, polyamory, polyandry, whatever. Consenting adults should have the right to choose what types of relationships work for them. And if they would stop raping children and treating women as property, they could very probably eventually win that right. It’s too bad that they’re some of the worst bigots, otherwise they could join with non-Mormon polys and the LGBT community and just work towards a sensible, sane establishment of adults’ rights to marry whomever they damn well please, however they damn well please.
Warren Jeffs is in his 50’s. This polymagist colony has been in existence since before Utah became a state, separated from the main body of the LDS church by excommunication in 1935 when it refused to renounce polygamy. In the 76 years since then, the sect and its practices have been tolerated and allowed to spread.
Warren Jeffs did not “create” this bizarre world, but instead inherited it, born trapped there and inculcated with its customs and weird beliefs since infancy by his grandfather and father and all the other adults. I’m sure he sincerely and honestly believes every word of the ridiculous nonsense he spouts.
He was raised in a hermetically sealed society of lunatics whose religious services include sex, he was told everything outside was evil and would contaminate him, was ‘protected from’ learning anything different, and was surely well aware that if he dared to open his mouth to ask questions he would be expelled from the community at 13 or 14 like the other ‘excess boys’.
Is his behavior disgusting? Sure is to me. Did he ever have a chance to learn anything else? Nope. Did he set up this bizarre place or have much of a chance to change anything about it? Nope, Warren Jeffs only became the ‘prophet’ in 2002, when his father died.
The problem isn’t this particular person, the problem is the entire community involved and the State governments who through benign neglect allowed it to continue perpetuating these practices.
crowepps, good points. And, yes, the community is/was insular.
However, I will point that Warren Jeffs did not spend all his time in Short Creek. He was the principal of Alta Academy in Salt Lake City for 22 years. Jeffs did not have a college education, so he was not qualified to be principal.
To be fair, the academy was within the compound that his father, Rulon Jeffs built, so it was still possible to control both information coming in, and the behavior of people within the compound. The polygamist community was still less insular than it is now. Some of the families of the kids that attended the academy lived outside the compound.
Warren taught kids that men had never walked on the moon … that and other equally useful information.
Excerpts below from the FLDS 101 site.
There have been repeated reports that this cult is a disaster over many years. Nobody intervened to remove the children who are being abused there. After the huge number of children were removed and then the judge ordered them to be returned, according to social workers frightened children were begging not to be sent back but were torn from their arms and FORCED to return.
I don’t excuse Warren Jeffs’ behavior in any way whatsoever, but he at least has the excuse of being raised inside the cult. It would be necessary to go through a lengthy period of deprogramming before he could even begin to understand how bizarre the beliefs he was taught seem to others.
What’s the excuse for the State officials outside of the cult who were well aware that children were being abused sexually and physically and emotionally and didn’t bother to rescue them? How is the failure of the institutional Mormon church to intervene and put a stop to this any different than the institutional failure of the Catholic Church?
Of course, the depressing part is that the very things this disgusting excuse for a human being was doing are still happening all over the world, including many parts of the Good Ol’ US of A. Society has, apparently, decided that it’s an absolutely great idea to burn off this mole, but leave the cancer underneath it completely untreated.
“…she felt the all consuming fire of heaven”
I thought that fire was located in the other place.
So what’s so bad about Scienceblogs that makes no video embedding, 4x the banner ads, and constant “popup blocked” notifications preferable? :/
“But but Jebus wanted me to rape a hoard of kids!”
{vomit}
Good to see that what religious people accuse us atheists of, i.e. abiding by a specific (lack of/liberal?) moral code in order to grant licence for us to sate our {ahem} supposedly base desires, is actually exactly what their brethren are doing with their {cough} “perfect” holy dogmas. Isn’t clueless projection nummy?
I feel this needs throwing in certain sanctimonious faces hard, repeatedly and often.
Preferably accompanied by some species of solid object.
Louis
Sorry, that should be “SOME religious people”. Not all are so odious.
Louis
But is it evidence of an insane mind? I think not.
Jeff’s isn’t insane; he has accepted an ideology and acts consistantly with it. And he was raised in a situation where for his own safty he had to accept that ideology. The only insanity plea could be for Stockholm and brainwashing from the day Jeffs was born. He’s no more insane than Nazi camp guards, Klansmen, Rwanda Genocidists, Communist Gulag operators etc were. They have accepted an ideology and are part of a community that encourages them to treat people in such a manner.
Content censorship
I agree. Officials in Utah totally dropped the ball (crap — an overused metaphor that makes child abuse sound trivial).
Officials that oversee child welfare, and those responsible for maintaining education standards, in Utah let the polygamist colony get away with abuse (and with murder if you count the suicides they caused). And they let them get away with offering sub-standard education. In Warren Jeff’s case, abuse was part of the education system.
Law enforcement, the justice system, and social services in Utah are damaged by how closely they are intertwined with LDS Social Services and with the LDS Church in general.
And, as was noted up-thread, many Utahans have friends and family in both the LDS and the FLDS communities. It’s hard to think ill of your own “tribe” or family, and even harder to prosecute them. This is, of course, no excuse. Community and political leaders in Utah should pay a big price for their failures in this area.
In a CNN interview, both Flora Jessop and Elissa Wall noted how surprised and dismayed they were by the lack of support for people who do manage to escape the abusive cults. The two women reported that they, instead of the abusers they were running from, were often blamed. Blame the victim, show disrespect to the victim, consider the victims to be lowlifes and treat them accordingly. That’s too often what these women experience. And I don’t doubt that it can be the same for some of the “lost boys.”
Let’s not mince words. Jeffs’ religion doesn’t just engage in ritualized rape and child abuse, they maintain a fucking slave trade.
Correct. They ship teenage girls, and sometimes even younger girls, back and forth between polygamist colonies in the U.S. and those in Canada.
Carolyn Jessop’s escape story documents phone calls to her father, a Blackmore related to Winston Blackmore who heads the Bountiful, Canada polygamist colony. Male leaders in the USA polygamist colony were checking in with leaders in Canada and other areas to try to find Carolyn, and to arrange for her abusive husband to force her back into the Short Creek colony.
The 2008 raid on the Texas compound, Yearning for Zion, yielded records of two teen girls shipped down from Canada to Texas.
Winston Blackmore used to have his henchmen pick up girls in Short Creek and drive them up to Canada.
Over time, polygamy in colonies like those of Bountiful and Short Creek inevitably forces the age of marriage downward for females (consider the facts of population statistics, with approximately the same number of females as males being born). Men who want multiple wives face a supply shortage. They start to include ever-younger females in the marriageable category, and they become more aggressive in kicking young men out of the colony. They also turn to other polygamist colonies to find child brides.
Without invoking the hand of God, it’s hard to justify to cult members that kind of abuse.
crowepps:
They marry many wizards?
@Lynna
Right, they’re engaged in human trafficking…that this isn’t a big story and that they’re allowed to get away with this (when even transporting a minor over state lines is supposed to be a big deal, much less international) is highly puzzling.
It mystifies me too. I think in large part the social pressures to respect what a mormon offshoot religion considers “sacred” (in mormonese, that’s holy+secretive). So they can’t interfere with the free religious practice of religious slavery where women can be reassigned in their marriages to reward or punish conformity and obedience to the religious dictators.
It also makes me angry, particularly because these are the same agencies that are supposed to represent my will as part of the citizens of Utah.
@ wintermute
LOL — All hail Typso by wiggling their slipping fingers
Ahahahaha! In total denial about being guilty of raping children, and being found so, Jeffs walked out of the sentencing hearing.
The best part is that he didn’t understand that by leaving he was somewhat waiving his right to represent himself, so his backup defense attorneys took over. The judge was wonderful:
What do all those old men see as the future of their colonies without young men?
They do have young men, up to a point.
For example Carolyn Jessop’s son was 12 years old when he was taken out of school and put to work full-time in construction. He was not paid, just required to work.
Young men are kept in the colony until they become a sexual threat, or competition for wives. Even then, some may be allowed to remain if their fathers are powerful enough. Giving young men a wife may be a sort of gift to the powerful father, or a sort of payment for extraordinary obedience and service from the young man.
All those wives keep having babies as fast as nature allows, and about half of them are boys. More boys to be used as labor.
Some teenage boys are sent to labor camps, like the logging camps in Canada. There they labor for far less than minimum wage, and they have no contact with the women of the colony. Near-slave labor is par for the course not just for teen boys, but also for young men allowed to stay in the colony.
It’s not unusual for teen boys from Short Creek to be sent to a Canadian labor camp if they are viewed as in need of discipline. This is also human trafficking.
It takes very little in the way of an offense (and one may be trumped up if there’s no real offense to rely upon) to send a boy to a labor camp. Some of the older men who own businesses associated with labor camps get quite wealthy.
Lynna, OM
5 August 2011 at 6:56 pm
I was aware of some of that horror.
It is not sustainable.
It can lead only to extinction.
Don’t they see that?
@Chigau
If what I’ve heard about recessive genetic conditions in those places is true, the lack of males is the least of their extinction threats.
Well sure. Joseph Smith said the moon was inhabited by people dressed like Quakers. That means a lot of Mormons don’t believe we sent people to the moon. Because none of the astronauts ever reported seeing any Quakers on the moon. If this is confusing, you don’t understand sophisticated theology.
AFAIK, the FLDS is just like what the Mormon church used to be. And there seems to be a lot of sympathy among Mormons for them. Don’t forget polygamy is only suspended on earth and only because the feds made them.
Utah has never bothered with the polygamists. They used to have wars among themselves that killed dozens. At Hildale UT, they have some really large cemeteries and no one is too sure who is in them and how they got there. One for babies has a 1,000 graves.
Here on the coast, a few years ago, Child Protective Services ended up with a 14 year old runaway from one of the polygamist cults in Utah. The state of Utah asked them to send her back. CPS did a little investigating and told the state of Utah family services to go to hell.
Probably not heading to extinction at all.
1. AFAIK, the polygamists are expanding quite rapidly. The women are baby factories and they start having babies in their mid teens or earlier. A woman with modern medical care can have 10 or 15 children in her lifetime. And this is exponential growth.
2. The state of Utah just ignores them. They don’t care. Jeffs was convicted in Utah and released by the Utah Supreme court for some reason. Don’t forget this trial is happening in Texas.
3. But really, I don’t think anyone has the slightest idea of how to deal with the polygamists. Janet Reno tried it with a similar group, the Branch Davidians at Waco, and we all know how that turned out.
I don’t have any idea either. Jeffs is just a symptom of something dark and ugly to the bone. It’s mind control, brainwashing, female slavery, and pedophiles with a thin frosting of oogedy boogedy religion to keep it together.
After reading the title, i have to admit, my first thought was…”haha. He wishes.”
And then, “Oh yeah this is Jeffs and these are little girls. Damn”
These sort of people…I think that life in prison would be too good for them. There is a certain amount of satisfaction to be gotten from imagining this asshole set loose in the general prison population…but I think it lowers a person to truly want that. I hope he gets life and a day and retains enough sanity to someday get a glimmer of understanding of what he did and how he will be remembered for it. He is going to have a lot of time to think about things so maybe those thoughts will randomly congeal in his head.
That is Hell.
On a happier note, my faith in America has been slowly rebuilding from the results of these latest high profile cases. Anthony acquitted on lack of evidence and Jeffs convicted. We can pick a bunch of people at random and have a majority who don’t think with their gut! Now if we could only elect someone who wasn’t the village idiot…
Here’s a youtube video, recorded in jail, in which Warren Jeffs says that he is not the prophet, that he’s never been the prophet, that he’s been deceived, etc.
Hell fire and damnation! And for the lurking mormons, Oh My Heck! I did it again. The video ended up in the comment stream when I meant to post only a link to the video.
As the sentencing phase goes on, more details will surface about the extent of abuse in FLDS colonies. For example:
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/52333586-78/jeffs-flds-trial-sex.html.csp
After Rulon Jeffs died, Warren Jeffs waited a few months and then started marrying his father’s wives, beginning with the younger ones.
Mainstream mormons frothing at the mouth in the comments sections of newspapers:
Old time, mainstream mormon violence related to sex, polygamy and powerful men:
References:
Pages 284-286 of John D. Lee’s Confession in MORMONISM UNVEILED, or THE LIFE AND CONFESSIONS of the Late Mormon Bishop JOHN D. LEE
Pages 250-251, The Mormon Hierarchy, Extensions of Power by
D. Michael Quinn.
Pages 301-302, The Rocky Mountain Saints by T. B. Stenhouse, 1873.
Vol. 5, pages 54-55, Wilford Woodruff’s Diary, June 2, 1857
One of the recurring themes in the comments posted by mormons is that the LDS Church ended the practice of polygamy thanks to a revelation from God, and that the FLDS polygamist colony is therefore going against God’s will. FLDS are not true mormons. [Yeah, right. Scoffing is appropriate.]
Along with this thinking comes the claim that church leaders would never have put a stop to an established church ritual for something so petty as materialistic as becoming a state, nor as a result of threats from the U.S. Army. They get their mormon, conservative, patriotic, Tea Party approved, sacred panties twisted over this issue:
History is against them on this.
Mormon church leaders petitioned for statehood eight times. Congressional records show that the petition was denied because they practiced polygamy, and because they ran a theocracy, fielded their own army, etc. Mormons even wanted to have their own currency.
Mormon petitions for statehood:
March 8, 1849, this was the first petition, and it was drafted about two years after mormons settled near what is now Salt Lake City.
The petition for statehood was renewed in the following years:
1855, 1861, 1867, 1872, 1882, 1887, 1895.
Utah was admitted to statehood in 1896, after mormon leaders agreed to put a stop to the practice of polygamy.
raven:
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“3. But really, I don’t think anyone has the slightest idea of how to deal with the polygamists. Janet Reno tried it with a similar group, the Branch Davidians at Waco, and we all know how that turned out.
I don’t have any idea either. Jeffs is just a symptom of something dark and ugly to the bone. It’s mind control, brainwashing, female slavery, and pedophiles with a thin frosting of oogedy boogedy religion to keep it together.”
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… Is this why there are so many prostitute/rentboy-type scandals among old white dudes in power, and why so many anti-abortion and anti-contraception laws are popping up and finding support? Because of the sheer number of cult-trained mind-controllers leaking out into positions of power? Are we dealing with rape culture, and all its networking and denial, on a governmental scale?
If the state of Utah had an ounce of ethics and morality, they would set up safety refuge, education, and retraining programs for fleeing FLDS members. We already know they don’t. It’s a Mormon thing.
Que bueno. Who benefits from the FLDS? A small group of old men pedophiles who like fucking lots of young girls.
Women, children, and surplus pushout boys certainly don’t. Polygamy is a zero sum game. If one guy has 30 wives, 29 men won’t have any.
The outside world can look mysterious and terrifying to people raised as near slaves. But people want to be free and be themselves. If the FLDS members had choices and alternatives, I suspect a lot of them would take it.
This is a very good point.
Carolyn Jessop took advantage of help offered from a private individual, a guy who had made a fortune off a whitener for teeth. He set up guest houses for escapees. However, he doesn’t have the muscle that a state or federally-run service would have. There was no police protection, for example, and Carolyn had to flee the guest house temporarily to escape her vengeful husband who had traced her there.
We might have a problem letting people within the polygamist cult know about alternatives, about safety nets, about transportation and protection services, etc. Right now the cult has a 90-man goon squad roaming Hilldale/Colorado City. The goon squad patrols constantly, even at night, looking for people who may be viewing or listening to banned news sources.
Most of the people in Warren Jeff’s flock do not know the details of the trial. They do not know about the audio tape of him raping a 12-year-old girl.
No TV, no internet — these things are forbidden.
If they do manage to escape, do they get hunted down and forced to return? All their safety net, such as it is, is INSIDE the cult. It’s hard enough for domestic abuse victims to leave, even WITH places for them to flee to.
Yes, they get hunted down and forced to return.
Some of the would-be escapees don’t make it very far. FLDS men give their women access to vehicles that are not properly registered and licensed. That way, if the woman tries to escape, the man has a legitimate reason to tell the local cops (also FLDS members) to stop the vehicle. Local cops write it up as stopping the vehicle for having no license or an out-of-date license plate, for example. Then they escort the escapee back to the colony.
A few years ago there was some controversy over the way mormon, but non-FLDS cops were handling escapees that were picked up in St. George and other surrounding communities. Sometimes they would call social services, which would in turn call the woman’s relatives. The woman would be cowed into silence when her husband or father arrived. Many of the people working in social services are also mormon.
Cult leaders will go to extremes to retrieve wayward daughters and wives. Carolyn Jessop’s husband followed her to Salt Lake City.
Many women will not testify against cult leaders because they know that those leaders will take revenge on any children they have left behind. Women within the cult will also take revenge on children or other close family members of an escapee. Sister wives may be instructed by the husband to discipline a wayward woman’s children. To escape punishment for themselves and their own children, some women go along with this. Many justify punishment of escapees who are caught, or of family members left behind, as ordered by God. It’s necessary for the good of the community.
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… I… what. WHAT.
Okay… okay. Isn’t this the sort of thing that mandatory reporting laws are supposed to stop, as with some child abuse laws? Such that (IIRC) a teacher or medical professional or social worker can be punished if they DON’T intervene? (I’m wayyy out of my knowledge zone here.)
I am truly staggered. I hope the bastard gets life.
The state of Utah could help the escapees if they wanted to. They don’t care.
The Mormon church could if they wanted to. They have lots of money. They don’t care either. Too busy making more money with the money they have and converting Brazilians.
For anyone over 18, this is a serious crime. It’s kidnapping, a major felony.
Offhand, I’d say the state of Utah is passively complicit with these cults. It’s so much easier to just ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist.
Which once again disproves the frequent claim. “Religion is the source of morality.” It’s not. If anything it’s the source of immorality.
Won’t make much difference. There are an estimated 50,000 polygamists in Utah and they seem to be growing rapidly.
Jeffs is just a symptom of a dark and ugly system, corrupt and evil to the bone.
There are thousands or tens of thousands just like him in those cults. He is a replaceable cog in their religion, chief prophet, seer, revelator, and pedophile.
While he was raping the 12 year old during her “wedding”, 10 or 20 FLDS members were watching it.
You know considering the FLDS has a history of violence and prophecies about dominance of America and all, why doesn’t the gov just declare them enemy combatants and round up the lot and bulldoze over the compounds?
Instead of waiting for them to breed up the numbers for an army.
Still amazes me that the idea of an entire 50,000 community that practices slavery is tolerated.
The comment below is from excerpted from the Readers Comments section on the Salt Lake Tribune website:
Raven wrote:
There are several threads on exmormon.org in which ex-mormons (and non-believers who still attend church for the sake of their spouse) note that polygamists have been known to attend mainstream mormon churches, where they are accepted as long as they only show up with one wife. One ex-mormon even noted that a middle-aged man showed up with a flock of children and what appeared to be wives plural and no one said a thing. Of course, large families are common in mormon communities, so it might be difficult to tell who is who.
Several ex-mormons also wrote that they had attended public schools with the children of polygamist families. Not all polyg communities put their children in polyg-only schools.
As the penalty phase progresses, prosecutors have brought more witnesses forward to talk about Jeffs. Some of the witnesses go back to Warren Jeffs’s time as principal of Alta Academy in Salt Lake City. A woman testified that she had been molested by Jeffs in his office at the school. A man testified that Jeffs had raped him in a restroom.
This story is from July 12th of this year:
http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/52177940-78/jeffs-daughters-wallace-brother.html.csp
The FLDS lawyer, Rodney Parker, arranged the emotional, tearful interviews with women from Yearning for Zion after the Texas raid. Parker is a snake in the grass and a liar.
The original raid at the YfZ ranch was a response to a call that turned out to be a hoax, but while the law officers were there they saw very young teen girls who were obviously pregnant. With that info, they went back to the courts and got a warrant to search the Yearning for Zion ranch. It was during the second search that most of damning evidence was found, including the bed in the temple, boxes of records and photos, etc.
Some of Jeffs’s supporters are saying that all the evidence presented at the trial was obtained during an illegal search. Not true. The search was legal. And in addition to the search at the ranch, investigators had all the documents and tape recordings Jeffs had with him in his red Escalade.
DNA evidence has proven that Jeffs fathered a child with a 15 year old girl (she may have been 14 at the time of impregnation).
Some of Jeff’s supporters are now posting that his warnings to Judge Walther and to the court have started to come true. This, my friends, is why the credit rating of the USA has been downgraded.
If we don’t stop persecuting Warren Jeffs, there will be further downgrades, and The Beast (US Government and all infidels) will be well and truly bled.
Heck, don’t the mainstream Mormons even bother to deny it, like the mainstream Catholics have attempted to do?
Actually, I have a horrible thought… that the public outrage at the Catholic church and its pedophiles stems from the rape of boys. Maybe raping and impregnating little girls doesn’t “count”. Argh…
I’ve accepted a different reason for the downgrade but then I’m blinded by reality.