Posted on 04/13/2008 11:39:18 PM PDT by Paleo Conservative
(CBS) The raid on the polygamist compound in Eldorado, Texas has not only focused public attention on such sects, it's sparked many questions about them.
One such query: Who pays their bills?
A significant part of the answer, according to Early Show national correspondent Hattie Kauffman is -- taxpayers, in the form of welfare.
Kauffman and Laurie Allen, who escaped from polygamy, drove around one such community, in Colorado City, Ariz., and saw many mammoth homes built to accommodate multiple wives and children.
How the man of the house can afford to build such super-sized dwellings! The answer: He can't. He doesn't pay for them, you do.
As Allen explained to Kauffman, "What happens is a man marries one wife, she's his legal wife, then he marries ten other wives in the church, and all the other wives are, by law, single women, so they have all these children with him, and they all get welfare."
The more kids, the bigger the welfare check, Kauffman points out.
"Some of the women in this town have 26 babies," Allen told her.
And the women, Kauffman adds, have no choice. The fundamentalists believe a man needs three wives to get into heaven. And the wives exist for one reason: to make babies.
"On my wedding night, I was raped," another escapee from polygamy, Pam Black, said to Kauffman. She had 13 babies but, she says, "knew nothing about sexuality or intimacy, friendship."
It's been a long road to recovery, Kauffman says. Now free from the sect, Black is building a new life, with a new man who is able to show her tenderness.
"I just want people to know the most important thing is right here," said Gordie Soaring Hawk, tapping his chest, "a very tender, precious heart."
Black says she got away just in time. "They were trying to set me up so they could put the handcuffs on me, and take me away," she said tearfully, " ... because they don't want women here who think for themselves."
Though shunned by the town's residents, Black has refused to move away.
A stillborn daughter is buried in the religious sect's graveyard for babies.
"It's cruel here, what people do," Black remarked.
The religious group teaches that both laughter and tears come from evil spirits, Kauffman says.
"People's feelings are shut down and they can't feel," Black cried. "They just like, go around like a zombie."
"It's OK to feel, it's OK to cry," Kauffman reassured Black.
"Yes!" Black agreed. "I encourage everyone to feel to the fullest!"
"If your heart is filled with sorrow," Soaring Hawk advised, "then feel it to the depth. And then walk through it."
Black says women who can't control their feelings are beaten, and men who can't control their women lose them -- church leaders simply assign the wives and children to another man.
Ask any professional dealing in battered children regarding the future mental health of the children reared as chattel.
We will pay for them from birth to indigence to old age to death.
I don't know about "color-coding," but the dress code itself is very strict in the Hilldale-Colorado City group. Men: Shirts buttoned to the top. Sleeves rolled down and buttoned. Women: Skirts to mid-calf or longer, sleeves below the elbow (presumably to keep them out of food and dishwater), collars to neck. No cutting of hair, no hair flowing loose. Babies are dressed according to the rules for adults.
Corr: Forgot the stockings. opaque stockings on women and girls. The girls will wear the opaque stockings with white sports socks over them, and wear sports shoes. Hilldale-Colorado City is in the desert. Daytime temps in the summer go well over 100 degrees F. But the dress codes are never violated, no matter what the temperature.
I assume they wear the original Mormon garments.
There is so much intimidation going on normal welfare type investigations will not do anything. It has to be Police with undercover informants like it was in this case.
The only way for it to work would be if the investigating agency was separate from the welfare distributing agency.
bump
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