Sick liberals exploit Elizabeth Smart’s rape and kidnapping to demonize abstinence education

Elizabeth SmartIn 2002, the kidnapping of 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart captured the nation’s attention. Rescued nine months later, Smart had been held prisoner and raped by Brian David Mitchell, who is currently serving a richly-deserved life sentence. Today, Smart is a 25-year-old author, advocate for child-protection laws, and missing persons commentator for ABC News.

Last Wednesday, Smart spoke at a Johns Hopkins University forum on human trafficking. She discussed her mindset while in captivity, the following excerpt of which has been picked up by numerous liberal commentators:

I remember in school one time, I had a teacher who was talking about, well, about abstinence, and she said, “imagine that you’re a stick of gum, and when you engage in sex, that’s like getting chewed, and if you do that lots of times, you’re gonna become an old piece of gum! And who’s going to want you after that?” Well, that’s terrible, but nobody should ever say that, but for me, I felt, oh my gosh, I’m that chewed-up piece of gum! Nobody re-chews a piece of gum. You throw it away. And that’s how easy it is to feel you no longer have worth, you no longer have value. Why would it even be worth screaming out, why would it even make a difference if you are rescued, your life still has no value.

Slate, the Huffington Post, Gawker, ThinkProgress, and MSNBC all have pieces up with headlines depicting Smart as saying abstinence education itself made her feel worthless and demoralized her away from trying to escape earlier. Liberals have a long, ghoulish record of hijacking victims to shame their enemies and emotionally blackmail people into adopting their policies, and this case is especially egregious because the victim in question said no such thing.

Certainly, Smart says the remarks of one particular teacher, whose “who’s going to want you?” dismissal to teenage girls seems lacking in Christian compassion, played a role. But while I do not presume to know her views on the general subject, Smart’s speech does not blame abstinence education itself, or the general principle of abstinence.

A bit earlier, she mentions being “raised in a very religious household, one was taught that sex was something special that only happened between a husband and a wife who loved each other,” which she was “determined to follow.” And near the beginning of her speech, she makes clear that, also while in captivity, she realized that her parents’ strong belief in abstinence wouldn’t make them value her any less:

I remember on that first day of being kidnapped and raped, I remember thinking of my parents, and after realizing that they would still love me, that just because I’d been chained, just because I’d been kidnapped, just because all these things had happened to me, that wouldn’t change their love.

Why would they? Generally, Christians are far more understanding toward those who fall for sexual temptation than we’re given credit for, but here we needn’t even go that far. Being raped is not giving in to temptation. It’s not consensual sex. It’s not promiscuity. It’s not you making light of the sacred or wasting God’s gifts. Rape is a foul, violent crime for which the victim bears no fault, and the only “Christians” who think otherwise either reside in some isolated fringe of no practical significance or exist within liberals’ slanderous imaginations.

It’s true that rape can lead to all sorts of doubts about one’s sexuality and self-worth, and it’s not implausible that those effects could be heightened for people with a religious attachment to their virginity. But it’s preposterous to suggest that valuing your virginity and wanting to save yourself for one special person are therefore intrinsically destructive beliefs, and it’s a stretch to suggest that the phenomenon is unique among conservatively religious victims – feelings of guilt and lost self-esteem are commonly reported reactions, and are routinely cited as part of what makes rape such a horrible thing to do to anyone, not just one particular subset.

Think of it this way: as disappointed as religious parents would be to learn their teenager has been sexually active, they’d be far more troubled to learn he or she had killed someone or stolen something. Does that mean they would look down on their child for shooting an attacker in self-defense, or stealing bread and water to save a starving person? No. The prospect is absurd for the same reason expecting them to think any less of a raped daughter would be absurd: having principles doesn’t mean we’re idiots who can’t understand the concept of facts and circumstances.

Well-intentioned and well-adjusted people do not stoop this low to demonize people and ideas they disagree with. Would it be too much to ask any of the abstinence critics in our audience what the real motive is?

If Elizabeth is still aMormon, she is not a Christian and has not been saved. I know Mormons believe in some weird sort of unbiblical universal salvation. But only those who place their faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ are saved. There is no other gospel (Galatians1). All the rest are false and will lead to hell, the great white throne of judgment and the lake of fire.(Revelation 20)

Unknown quantities and not for us to judge. I can't figure out why so many are so dang concerned with the souls of the Romneys and not so concerned about the sold they can reach with the Word. For all we know, the whole Romney clan, and even a whole bunch of Mormons, have acknowledged Christ as Lord and Savior and are as saved as the rest of us who either belong to more "traditional" religions (over 32K sects of Christianity and some of them are real doozies) or even non-denominational. I have heard Romney acknowledge Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and have no reason to not believe him. I got away from religion because it has so many ways to obfuscate the Word by mixing in a few thousand canons, doctrines, rites, ceremonies, etc., that it really whittles away at the pure carrying of the good news of the Gospels and the New Covenant. The Bible will not make me a theologian, but it carries ample Word to bring me to Christ.

There are a number of "universalist" Christian religions out there and we will never truly know until He comes back. Even the Rapture and its timing have not become "settled science" among all theologians - it makes no difference because it will be what it will be as He spoke it and all we can do is try to be prepared and to carry the Word that others can be prepared too. Carrying the Word itself is much more effective than leaving it out of the equation and just slamming the religions one doesn't like - I don't like any of them and consider them to be purveyors of sinfulness because so many get so caught up in the religion that they start to miss the MESSAGE. I won't go on a crusade against any religion (I love conversations though) because even the worst of the Christian religious sects has undoubtedly reached some souls with the message they needed to hear.

I have heard Romney acknowledge Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior and have no reason to not believe him.

I know lots of Mormons. None of them are saved based upon what they believe. They do not believe on Jesus Christ, God. They believe in many gods, not in the one true God. Consequently, they are NOT saved.

They consequently reflect the fruit of such false belief. They trust in their own works to "save them". (You'll get many inconsistent views ranging from universalism to works righteousness.)

Many so-called Christians do the same as well, either trusting in their works to save them or keep them saved. That's not what the Bible says: Romans 4 makes it clear that Abrahams faith, without the works of the law, placed him in righteous standing before God. And in Acts 16:30,31 when the jailor asked what must he do to be saved, Paul (and Silas) answered, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved, and the y house." They subsequently shared the gospel, the jailor and his family believed and they were saved, sealed for eternity with the Spirit of promise, incapable of being anything other than a child of God. (Ephesians 1:12-14)

When these Mormons stand before God at the great throne of judgement pleading, this will be Jesus' response:

(Matthew 7:22,23) (22:) Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? (:23) And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

My sister and I were raised in the Mormon church. I became a son of God when I believed the gospel, the only saving gospel that exists. She did not believe. She remained deceived and refused the gospel, preferring in stead her own works. She died 9 years ago in this state. The Bible says she is burning in the hell this very moment (Luke 16:22) very much aware of her mistaken belief.

There is only one path to God and that is through his Son Jesus Christ and no other. You don't believe this. You don't believe God's word. That should concern you.

By the way, I am, among other things, a writer, and I have worked in the movie industry. I have read hundreds of stories that have become movies. A narrative has to hang together, and make sense. ….. I apply the same rigor to every story, whether it is news or fiction…..

First of all “stories”; true life or true crime stories or completely fictional stories - the type of stories that make for and eventually become movies; the story or “narrative” is often edited, compressed, details omitted or extra story material added or changed to make it fit the movie story telling medium. You of all people, as a writer who has worked in the movie industry should know this. Real life on the other hand does not always have such a neat narrative or fit the classic story telling arch and isn’t so easy to condense into a script that after filming and editing can be compressed into a 2 hour run time that people who have short attention spans and like neat endings will plunk down $8 to $10 to watch in a theater or will buy on Blue Ray. Nor is it like Law & Order or NICS or any number of crime dramas on TV; you can’t depict a crime, the police investigation and trial in 60 minutes less time for commercials. But I would expect you already (or should) know that.

I’ve just looked on the internet and seen that there are others who have questioned the Elizabeth Smart narrative. It seems that there are even more holes in her story than I realized. Take a look.

So? I can look on the internet and find all sorts of people who claim that the Moon landing in 1969 was faked, that 9-11 was an “inside job” and that the WTC towers were pre-rigged with explosives, I can also find on the internet all sorts of people who claim they were abducted by aliens in UFO’s, claim to have lived past lives, claim to be psychics, etc. We’ve even had a few threads posted here at FR (and many of them thankfully pulled) citing “infowars”, “naturalnews” and “beforeitsnews” and other such kook conspiracy sites banned as sources by JR himself, that made claims that Sandy Hook and even the Boston Marathon bombing were all staged events and that all the “supposed” victims were merely paid crisis actors. They all claim to have compelling evidence but on closer inspection they are connecting dots where there are no dots exist or are completely making “stuff” up out of their deranged minds. Some internet site contain good information, some not so much, a few blogs are with reading but most (as I’m sure humblegunner will agree) are a complete waste of time.

I did a search on the internet on “Elizabeth Smart did not tell the truth” and it turned up a few hits, but those were mostly of “bloggers” with no background in criminal investigations and little actual knowledge of the crime and the trial that followed, merely “opinion” pieces and a few of those are by people with gripes against the Mormon Church, claiming it was a frame up and cover up. And FWIW, I’m neither defending nor disparaging the beliefs of Mormons, I think some of their beliefs are odd but then I also think that some of the beliefs of many more mainstream religions are just as odd; but if anything derogatory can be said of Elizabeth Smart’s parents related to their daughter’s kidnapping, it could be said that even if their intentions were good - to help and give a hand up to the less fortunate buy giving them some odd jobs, they were way too trusting and way too gullible for their own good.

Hello, they were Mormons, which means they were already nutty. The weird guy was in their home - the father had hired him. Teenaged girls are very impressionable, especially over-protected girls who are emotionally twelve.

Well, there you go. I suspect that what you really have is a preconceived negative bias against Mormons and that because of their “nuttiness” or your perception of their level of “nuttiness”, they got just what they deserved. You also seem to underestimate or overestimate teenage girls of 14 years old. But it should also be mentioned that there are a number of people (liberals or self admitted former liberals like yourself) who think that fundamentalist Christians and Roman Catholics are just as “nutty” too, and then there are those nutty “home schooling” families, or Christian families with lots of children (Duggers) and those nutty families who don’t let their 14 year old daughters dress like hookers or give them access to birth control or abortions, those “nutty” families who make their kids go to church, don’t allow their kids to listen to certain types of music with suggestive or sexual lyrics, watch movies or TV shows with objectionable content; those poor over-protected girls who are “emotionally twelve” because, well some are actually twelve year old or near to it, but in your opinion being under the thumb of oppressive and over protective parents, those who don’t allow their kids to run around like feral animals, those poor impressionable and obviously miserable teenagers like those being raised in a home with strong morals, that would make any such girl just up and leave her home in the middle of the night to take up with a stranger and fabricate a story about being kidnapped? And if you were really all that well versed about her abductors, Brian David Mitchell and Wanda Ileen Barzee and their backgrounds you would know just what they were capable of. And you would also know that with even the most impressionable teen, it would take some time, a lot more time than a few brief encounters to indoctrinate her into joining their two person “cult” which wasn’t even really a “cult” but two very sick and demented persons looking to abduct a child of a prominent Mormon family because they had a gripe against the Mormon Church for excommunicating them for their extreme nuttiness.

The first thing she said to the police when found was, ”you think I’m that.girl who ran away...”

And do you think perhaps that during her 9 months of captivity, her abductors didn’t repeatedly tell her (in addition to telling her “we will kill your family, your parents, your little sister”) that they also told her that no one would believe her and “everyone, even the police and your parents thinks you are a run-away”? That BTW is how pedophiles work and get away with their crimes; that is what Jerry Sandusky told the kids he molested – “if you tell, no one is going to believe you”, “if you tell, very bad things will happen to your family”.

This same sense of story was what got me to change from remaining a liberal - the way I was raised - to becoming conservative.

If it was merely your sense of “story” that got you to change from remaining a liberal to becoming a conservative, I think you might want to reassess what being conservative actually means.

I wonder why questioning a narrative that doesn’t have much supporting evidence is so upsetting to you.
To start at the end of your message - my statement that realizing the story was wrong is an excellent way of describing coming out of liberalism into conservatism. And the Smart case is a good analogy. Liberalism is a construct of fictions that don’t make sense - even as fiction. So when I began to see the difference between what I had been told and the information that was in conflict with that narrative - like Duranty’s massive deception about the Ukrainian famine - I began to question the validity of the narrative and the credibility of the people and institutions that I had been told were the good guys. Eventually the entire false structure came tumbling down. Once it came down, I was able to see, from a logical, objective perspective that the people I had been told were the bad guys were the ones on the side of truth and justice, even if many of them were not cosmopolitan, drank bad coffee, had terrible taste in interior decorating, and little to no interest in culture. They were the ones who supported the truthful accounts of history, and whose policies were based on those truths.
Your deliberate re-casting of my saying that I found contradictory evidence about the Smart case in newspapers and magazines available online to wallowing in oddball blogs about ufos is a smear tactic that doesn’t merit a response.
Re the way narratives are condensed for dramatic purposes - the narrative of a crime cannot do that, because in that context, to simplify is to lie. There are a lot of loose threads in this story, and there has been significant misrepresentation. At the time of the disappearance, Mitchell looked nothing like how he looked when arrested.
I think the accounts from the friend who accompanied Smart to see Mitchell several times outside her home are credible. The report that she said, ”you think I’m the girl who ran away” to the police is credible. The photographs of her at a party with Mitchell are indisputable. The fact that the parents, who had hired Mitchell to come into their home, did not mention him as a possible suspect to the police raises a huge red flag. Anyone who would hire strange men with credentials to work in their home around young daughters is a nut.

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