 | 15 Apr 08 |
If you’ve been following the news, you are aware that last week the Texas authorities raided the FLDS Compound, YFZ Ranch (Yearning for Zion) and took all the children they found into custody. More than 400 children are in state custody. Up until this point, they had allowed the mothers of these children to go with them to the holding center, but this week they forced the majority of the mothers to leave. The only ones allowed to remain were those with very, very young children. As a spokeperson for Texas said, “It is not the normal practice to allow parents to accompany the child when an abuse allegation is made.” And she is right. However much love these mothers feel, they are ALLOWING the abuse.
I like Texas. They moved in because they received several disturbing phone calls from a 16-year-old girl who complained that her “husband” was abusing her and beating her. At this point, they say they have not identified the girl who made those calls, but have gone ahead with the action.
Go Texas! No wimpiness there. They have the big cojones, and they are not afraid to use them. The sad part is, I know these children probably do not FEEL like they have been rescued or saved. They probably feel as though they have been ripped from their families, and all they have ever known. And they have. Even worse, they have been taken into the arms of the “enemy.” The evil outsiders. Those who would keep them from the Kingdom of God.
These children do not know that their leader, the currently imprisoned Warren “Weenie Rat Face” Jeffs has admitted he is not really a prophet. This is the man who moved them all to Texas, who has married off hundreds of young girls, who has abused many more himself.
But these kids don’t know this.
I am feeling some angst for them, and I’m sure many others are as well. Not enough, however, that I think Texas made the wrong move. I say KUDOS to them, when all the other states with polygamist communities that exploit children are left alone because it is “religious freedom.”
The very first book I ever wrote, SISTERWIFE, dealt directly with polygamy, centering on a polygamous cult in Central Utah. Some of the first rejections I got on this book were, “Too far fetched. Couldn’t happen.” “Not realistic.” Then it started happening. Well, not started happening. It was ALWAYS happening. The world just didn’t know about it. Now, Warren Jeffs has made it VERY, VERY REAL.
FYI, if you are interested, this book is now available for FREE on my Web site.
I, for one, am glad to see this action, and hope that Texas will follow through getting these children placed into appropriate homes. I would HOPE they would allow their mothers the opportunity to LEAVE the abusive sect and start over with their children, because most of them were raised the very same way. They don’t know anything different.
So what do you think? Do you think Texas was right in raiding the YFZ Ranch and removing the children?
© 2008 – 2009, Natalie R. Collins. All rights reserved.
Natalie R. Collins was born in Logan, Utah and attended the University of Utah. She worked for eleven years at The Salt Lake Tribune, Utah's largest daily newspaper, before leaving to devote more time to her family. During the ensuing years, she wrote five novels. She also worked for the 2001 and 2002 Sundance Film Festivals as an editor. Natalie is a member of the International Thriller Writers, Mystery Writers of America, and Romance Writers of America.
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Yes, I think Texas was right. The children will have a tough time of it for awhile but children are resilient and will come through this trauma which will save them from further trauma at the hands of the “prophet”.
by Bonnie April 15th, 2008 at 11:06 amFor their actions I will forgive Texas for giving us our current President. Sorry, I know this isn’t a political blog, I just had to say it. My hubby just informed me the other day that he may be serving our country overseas again starting in the Fall. Last time it was Iraq, this time someplace else just as lovely.
I’m very happy the authorities took action. It’s about time. Claiming religious freedoms to get away with abuse or other crimes is Bullsh*t.
You are so right about many of these mom’s not knowing a different way of life, because they were raised this way. It all makes me sick. The thought of marrying off one of my young daughters to an old man. Not a chance in hell. Anyone who tries will be missing some vital body parts.
Wow. I’m really in a mood. Thanks as always for your insight and the free book.
by HollyD April 15th, 2008 at 11:28 amWhy not take all the kids from Catholic families that still go to churches and support the Catholic religion after a child has been molested by a priest?
Since when does an anonymous comment that can’t be verified ended up where a whole community is invaded by jackbooted thugs, separating families, and hauling off citizens with armed, military style troops in America?
The Japanese interment camps in WWII and Indian Reservations were a black mark in American history. Here goes another.
The police can now make up a call into them and haul whole communities away in handcuffs taking away kids?
More of my thoughts [here]
-Steven G. Erickson
by Steven G. Erickson April 15th, 2008 at 11:28 amI think they HAD to followup on the phone call. I’m really sorry these children are going through this, I’m quite sure they are confused and scared.
There are no easy answers, but child brides to get easy sex makes me sick.
by Jen April 15th, 2008 at 11:33 amHolly, yup, I totally agree. There are LOTS of problems to solve caused by the removal of the children, but it can’t be worse than the abuse they were being subjected to–even if they don’t know that.
Jen, I agree. There are no easy answers, but Texas took the right steps.
by Natalie April 15th, 2008 at 11:34 amThe authorities definitely made the right call by going in and taking custody of the children. The welfare of the children is of the utmost importance. An allegation was made and they had an obligation to investigate these claims and make an informed decision in regards to the victim/victims.
by Jane April 15th, 2008 at 11:55 amDon’t mess with Texas!
by Karin April 15th, 2008 at 12:17 pmI’m glad they took it seriously and took the children away. I just wish none of the moms had to go back. I’m sure they do feel they’re in the hands of evil right now, but hopefully they can be deprogrammed and live as normal a life as possible. There is no way I could be one of many wives or subject my daughter to the same life or raise my son to think that he should live that way. It’s too bad the rest of the FLDS followers don’t know that Jeffs admitted he’s not a prophet and was never called by God as a prophet. Maybe that would make the difference for some to get out of the polygamous life.
by Erin April 15th, 2008 at 12:48 pmSunday, I spoke on the phone to a practising Mormon in Utah and she told me that in certain parts of the state fundamentalists are living exactly as those folks in the Texas compound were. (You’d be an expert on that.) I asked her why successive Governors and state authorities have tolerated this situation, and I didn’t really get much of an answer.
Does the LDS in Salt Lake City secretly condone the lifestyle of these fundamentalists? Do the bishops ever speak out against the abuse of women and children that they must know is happening in these polygamous enclaves? And what about the local law-enforcement agencies in and around these communities? Are they cut from the same cloth as the polygamists? My understanding of the church is that it once allowed polygamy, but had to stop the practice when Utah became a state. Perhaps, deep down, some in the church – and it still is a patriarchy, isn’t it? – have a yearning for those days.
Thank you very much for the book. I’m going to enjoy reading it, tonight.
by Richard Maguire April 15th, 2008 at 1:01 pmHolly – in Texas’s defense, they also gave us Ann Richardson and Molly Ivins.
It makes me sick to think of what has been done to those children. I have no doubt their mothers love them, but they’ve learned to live in a warped world, even survive in it; they are victims themselves. They know nothing else. For fifty-year-old men to impregnate young girls and “marry them”, consigning them to a life of slavery and hopelessness—it’s beyond imaginaton. And to use religion as an excuse is even worse. (I won’t even mention bilking the government big-time by putting these women and children on the welfare rolls).
I look at it as the kind of thing Child Protective Services has to do every day. One of those girls was sixteen years old and had four children. That’s enough probable cause to at least get them out of there. Whether they can prosecute or not is another story (slippery bastards). But its child abuse clear and simple, and those children should be made wards of the state. The state and federal governments are picking up the tab anyway, but at least those kids would get a shot at a normal life.
I just wish the mothers could be saved, too. I feel for them.
by J. Carson Black April 15th, 2008 at 3:33 pmI meant Ann Richards.
by J. Carson Black April 15th, 2008 at 3:33 pmRichard, I think the local law enforcement agencies at least at the compound on the Utah/Arizona border either are FLDS members or are sympathetic to them and nothing ever comes of complaints made against them. As far as the LDS church secretly promoting polygamy I don’t know, but I wouldn’t put it past them. I believe they do teach that even though polygamy isn’t practiced in this life, in the celestial kingdom each man will have many wives who (bless their hearts) will continue to be pregnant and pop out babies for eternity.
by Erin April 15th, 2008 at 5:32 pmJane, you are absolutely right. But I bet some of those guys aren’t sleeping too well right now. It’s a difficult job.
Karin, yup. Warren Jeffs made a serious misstep moving there.
Erin, I think some of these women just plain don’t know HOW to get out. They have never known anything else, have been taught to leave is to face eternal damnation and that the outside world is evil. That would make leaving pretty fraught with terror.
Richard, that’s a complicated question with a complicated answer. We here in Utah have allowed it for many years because if you arrest those practicing it, you have to look back at your own family tree. While the modern-day mainstream Mormon church does not practice physical polygamy, they do still practice spiritual polygamy, as a man can be married in the LDS Temple to more than one wife. Of course, this only happens if there is a divorce or the first wife dies. But he can be “married” to them both in the temple. So, how do you go after those living the LDS Church the way Joseph Smith taught it? Around the time the Olympics came to Utah, that’s when they finally stepped in and started prosecuting pligs. And at THAT point, the cat was out of the bag. And at this point, let me share my favorite Brigham Young quote.
“I will now say, not only to our delegate to Congress, but to the Elders who leave the body of the Church, that he thought that all the cats and kittens were let out of the bag when brother Pratt went back last fall, and published the Revelation concerning the plurality of wives: it was thought there was no other cat to let out. But allow me to tell you, Elders of Israel, and delegates to Congress, you may expect an eternity of cats that have not yet escaped from the bag”.
Brigham Young, Great Salt Lake City Tabernacle,
June 19, 1853 Journal of Discourses Vol. 1, p. 188
Those cats? They are STILL escaping the bag….
by Natalie April 15th, 2008 at 11:19 pmJake, you are so right. I feel exactly the same way. I feel for those mothers, but I want their children to be saved MORE than I feel for them.
by Natalie April 15th, 2008 at 11:21 pm