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Posted on 05/26/2008 6:42:47 AM PDT by Dukes Travels
It’s not easy being Mormon. No cursing, no premarital sex, no Mountain Dew. Perpetual good neighbors, their religion – so inherent to their existence – is a mystery even to those of us who have grown up in predominantly Latter Day Saint communities. In fact, most people know Mormons as the demographic that keeps FamilyFlix in business, Chevy Suburbans on the road and children from divorced families feeling cheated.
Thus, it’s a shame that the one opportunity the country may have to get to know the faith is when political spin taints the message. The high hopes that the Mitt Romney campaign would serve as a vehicle to spread the awareness of the religion have been replaced by the effort to separate the Salt Lake City-based church from the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints that have been making the news in Texas. The FLDS broke off from the central authority over 100 years ago.
(Excerpt) Read more at northstarwriters.com ...
Really? I thought it was just a political gimmick. I'll have to check out it now.
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I know where you're coming from in libertarian terms, but you've got to remember that children are wards; not property. And what constitutes a religion, at least in this country, is defined by the individual, who might or might not make a "religious" practice of bringing up little girls for the sole purpose of having a fresh supply of sweet young teenagers for middle-aged men to prey upon. I don't fault the state for its concern.
WWFSMD?
Only one problem. These people admit to practicing polygamy which is illegal. The state has girls in custody that were obviously underage when they were pregnant. And the cult won’t produce documentation about ages and marital status.
In short, they brought it on themselves.
And no, I don't recommend going to this website!
Why not? Ex-Christian, Non-Christian...what's the difference?
My point is—how DO you sort it out?
In a “normal” child abuse case, when there’s an accusation of child abuse, authorities come in and remove not just the one child, but all of the children in the household. That’s what was done here. The difference is not only in the number of children involved in this case, but the very murky relationships—which child belongs to which parent? Most of the men (except those involved in monogamous marriage at the time) disappeared, the women lied to protect them, and the children weren’t going to speak up while those enabling mothers were watching their every move.
The only way they could properly question the children was—just like in any other case—to separate the victims from the alleged perps and the witnesses.
At this point i am not sure anyone can.
The problems started when Texas went in and found more than they thought were there and to make matters worse ignored proof some were overage and declared them minors. They should of took only the ones that were really in imminate danger the 14-17 year old girls.
As soon as they started admitting some were not minors they lost creditability and from there it will go downhill.
They never gave them a proper first hearing and from what I see I am not sure they are getting a proper second hearing.
A lot of that is there is just not enough judges and courtrooms to have the hearings in other words they did not plan on this size of a problem.
So with a problem too large to properly handle and the lies they told about ages of some of the girls it is all snarled.
I am hoping the supreme court of Texas can make a ruling that will give some chance of determining if something wrong has happened there.
But almost two months with no arrest of anyone makes me wonder if it is a case of they did things wrong sometime but not here.
I do not approve of illegal behavior by flds nor by the state.
Yes, and many posters are ignorant that the original search warrant not only focused upon a criminal investigation of sexual abuse, but included bigamy as well.
Benjamin T. Johnson was either ex-communicated or was never an LDS member? Really? (I wouldn't want anyone to be misled by the misleader)
An in-depth study of the ties between the LDS and FLDS.
The reality is, many mainstream Mormons believe, the LDS would reinstitute polygamy -- which was practiced by members of the official church from the 1830s into the early 20th century -- if it had the legal power.
Jeffs and his band of hard-core polygamists are providing the public with chilling insight into the abuses of the practice, the most alarming of which is the sexual predation of underage girls. That both branches of the Mormon religion share the same polygamist roots is something the LDS leaders would rather not see exposed.
Both the LDS and the FLDS are based on the spiritual "revelations" of Mormon Church founder and prolific polygamist Joseph Smith. Smith's bedrock religious principle is polygamy, which is described in detail in Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants.
One verse of Section 132 is printed above. Others are directed at Smith's first wife, Emma. She is warned that if she doesn't accept Smith's plural wives, "she shall be destroyed." The admonition to Emma is considered by anti-polygamy activists as a warning to all Mormon women that, if necessary, they must accept polygamy or face hellfire.
The fact that Section 132 remains official Mormon doctrine has been a rallying point for anti-polygamy groups whose leaders bitterly complain that the LDS has provided no support, financial or otherwise, in their efforts to assist women and children who have been victimized by fundamentalist Mormons.
"[LDS] Mormons are trying to present a picture of the traditional family and yet they still have Section 132 in their scripture," notes Vicki Prunty, executive director of the Salt Lake City-based Tapestry Against Polygamy. "They have not denied the belief system that propagates polygamy. Until they do so and treat women as equals, we are going to continue to have the same fallout and abuses."
The LDS has provided little, if any, financial assistance to youth discarded by the polygamists, known as the "Lost Boys," or to desperate mothers who frequently face difficult and expensive legal battles to secure custody of their children.
Instead of providing help to people who, like its members, were brought up on the teachings of Mormon founder Joseph Smith, the LDS do not officially admit that fundamentalist Mormon polygamists even exist.
"There is no such thing as a 'Mormon fundamentalist,' nor are there 'Mormon sects,'" the LDS states in its May 10,2006 press release.
The LDS conveniently ignores the fact that FLDS members refer to themselves as "Mormon fundamentalists." It is all part of LDS propaganda that attempts to hide the deep historical ties between the two branches of the same religion.
I wouldn’t want anyone to be misled...
I believe it was Ansel12 who has posted sociological/demographic info which disproves this bogus theory. As was true of the entire West in the 19th century, there were many more men than women. (Perhaps Ansel12 could repost the info he found)
According to the Changing World of Mormonism, pp. 224-225: [LDS} "Apostle John A. Widtsoe stated: ’We do not understand why the Lord commanded the practice of plural marriage.’ (Evidences and Reconciliations, 1960, p.393). One of the most popular explanations is that the church practiced polygamy because there was a surplus of women. The truth is, however, that there were less women than men. Apostle Widtsoe admitted that there was no surplus of women”: The implied assumption in this theory, that there have been more female than male members in the Church, is not supported by existing evidence. On the contrary, there seems always to have been more males than females in the Church.’.. The United States census records from 1850 to 1940, and all available Church records, uniformly show a preponderance of males in Utah, and in the Church. Indeed, the excess in Utah has usually been larger than for the whole United States, ... there was no surplus of women'” (Widtsoe, Evidences and Reconciliations, 1960, pp.390-92," as cited in Changing World, pp. 224-225).
Sorry. You are engaging in revisionistic history. If anything, the Mormons accelerated their practice of polygamy in the late 1860s, 1870s, and 1880s...when they began to require their bishops & other top leaders to become polygamists. (In fact, some bishops were released who would not engage in the practice).
It was the Republican party, identifying polygamy was one of "the twin relics of barbarism" in 1856, followed by increasing Congressional legislative pressure from the early 1860s to the later 1880s, that helped bring about the beginning of polygamy's demise (along with a railroad goin' thru Utah, which helped the federals in their investigation & crackdown).
No; it's MORMONISM itself that makes it hard!!!
And if you want to learn a LOT more....
I want to learn more about Mormonism.
Can you please tell me what goes on in those sec... oops... SACRED Temple Rites®?
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