Posted on 12/30/2011 10:28:24 PM PST by Zakeet
As the year comes to an end and the followers of Warren Jeffs await the apocalypse he has predicted, they're living under a challenging edict: they're forbidden to have sex until Jeffs is sprung from a Texas prison.
"He has predicted that the walls in the prison where he's at will fall and crumble," said Joni Holm, who has many relatives in the polygamous FLDS faith.
According to Holm, Fundamentalist LDS Church members also face their faith's most severe punishment, excommunication, if they conceive a child.
It's one of the strangest edicts in a season full of them. Jeffs has issued a stream of revelations, prophecies and orders to his congregation in the border community of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz.
[Snip]
According to Holm, Jeffs declared all existing marriages to be void.
"Right now they have all been told that they are not to live as husband and wife," Holm said. "They can live in the same house, but they are not to have sexual relationships until Warren comes out and 're-seals' them."
[Snip]
If FLDS members have sex on the sly, any resulting children will be considered "sons of perdition," according to Holm's brother-in-law, and the parents will be instantly excommunicated.
The sex ban will be lifted only if Jeffs' latest prophecy comes true: an apocalypse that will bring down the prison walls and broil the human race.
"They believe that they'll still roam on the Earth," Holm said, "but the rest of us will be burned."
(Excerpt) Read more at ksl.com ...
Jeff’s is crazy. His followers are brainwashed. Truly. Getting someone out of any of the polygamous groups is an enourmous task.
www.shieldandrefuge.org
Not necessarily. They really do believe that Jeff’s is the voice of God.
However, there is a split brewing, which is part of the reason for this ‘revival’ as they call it. William Jessop has started a breakoff group and is gaining followers. I guarantee there will be bloodshed before this is over. There always is.
You can have as many wives as you want, as long as they all agree - just don’t tell the government. The FLDS is all about scamming the welfare system, and that’s where they ran into trouble.
Ping me if she responds. I’m expecting crickets.
I don't want to pick at nits, but didn't he entered into another polygamous marriage after that statement when he married Ms. Mountford in 1897?
As a lawyer with some experience at dancing in the head of a pin, there's a difference between 'present intention' and an agreement. Grammatically, that's also the difference between 'will' and 'shall' in the first person (particularly for legal documents). Shall means you are going to do it. Will means you have a present intention, but that may change. In the second- and third-person, it's just the opposite (man, we attorneys make things confusing. Will, with respect to a second or third party, is a commitment. Shall is present intention. Although that distinction has been watered down greatly in recent years just as grammar has been watered down.
So he used weasel words. He didn't said he would submit. He said he intended to submit.
That's my Johnny Cochran $29.95 apologetic argument for why it was okay to double-cross the U.S. government. He changed his mind. Yeah. That's the ticket.
Just disregard the fact that the Utah Constitution not only forbids polygamy, but has a singularly unique provision that the people of Utah can't bring back polygamy without the consent of the federal government.
I don't think so. This was my teasing little comment. I was surprised nobody had picked the low-hanging fruit left by the author's comment and responded with "An Account Written by the Hand of ...".
Again, no different than what is going on in inner cities, moms with kids by who knows how many daddies, welfare, subsidized housing, unspeakable abuse. Just by a different name.
So, that makes it right?
How many polygamists do you know IRL? Because I know plenty (both current and ex)
These women are not here by choice, they are forced into this lifestyle, brainwashed and blackmailed. Innner city families aren’t.
You are quite defensive, aren’t you. I was pointing out that there is a reason that the government won’t deal with it. If they deal with this, they must deal with the same culture they have fostered in the inner cities.
And oh, yes, inner city families are just as “forced” into these situations as the members of the FLDS families are, through generational welfare, gang violence, etc. Just by a different name.
In Utah (and Arizona), it's more complicated. There are special prohibitions in the Utah and Arizona state constitutions and the Utah and Arizona state laws on bigamy are written very specifically to go beyond legal marriage.
Utah was required to renounce and prohibit polygamy in order to become a state. Utah was, for all intents and purposes, a theocracy. It had been at war with the U.S. (Google the Utah Wars). Polygamy was illegal in the United States.In fact, the first political platform of the Republican Party (1856) spelled out the:"right and the imperative duty of Congress to prohibit in the Territories those twin relics of barbarism — Polygamy, and Slavery."
So Utah (and Arizona) was required to put a prohibition against polygamy in its state constitution. In Utah, the prohibition even required that the people of Utah couldn't change that provision without the consent of the United States (Utah Constitution, Section 3, Article 1). The United States didn't trust the LDS Church or the people of Utah.
Utah Code Annotated 76-7-101 makes bigamy a third-degree felony and goes beyond having more than one actual marriage. The Code provides:
"A person is guilty of bigamy when, knowing he has a husband or wife or knowing the other person has a husband or wife, the person purports to marry another person or cohabits with another person."
There is a dual city on the Southern Utah/Northern Arizona border that's been there for years and is one of many known cities where polygamists live. The state authorities do nothing about them (except occasionally to address welfare fraud). This isn't an informal thing - it's formal.
The official state website of Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff says that although polygamy is illegal in Utah and Arizona, law enforcement in both states have decided not to prosecute it. Some will say this is because it is a victimless crime; however, there are many victims. You could start with the teenaged boys who are thrown out of the compounds with no education, no money and no possessions because they pose a threat to the older men when it comes to the affections of the young girls. They're called the 'lost boys' and there are charities set up to take care of them. There is rampant child sexual abuse in these polygamist communities, as girls in their early teens or preteens are taken as brides.
There's massive welfare fraud, because the women generally don't work and the men can't afford to support multiple families.
In short, there are a lot of sociological angles here that are different than thugs impregnating several women.
No, it really isn’t any different than thugs impregnating several women. It is women being subjugated in a culture, and a government turning a blind eye, and in fact encouraging it, through access to social services.
Damn right I’m defensive. I have worked for years to help get these women out of these situations and I have heard and seen things no one should. My husband does legal work and we have a safe house for them. I work in ministry to those leaving and help train them to get jobs.
So when some smart assed ‘know it all’ who have never done what I have for them, thinks it isn’t a problem or any worse than anything else you damn well better believe I get pissed!
And no, inner city families are not forced into it the way these women are. Shut the Hell up until you have walked in my shoes.
The reason the government in doesn’t deal with it as much as they should is because in Utah they turn a blind eye, they won’t prosecute. Other states do prosecute occasionally for welfare fraud but not as much as they should because these people lie to ‘gentiles’. You don’t get it, inner city people DO have a choice, these women don’t and neither do the boys who are thrown out on the streets at puberty.
Do your research before you make such stupid comments.
Jeffs isn’t simply controlling these peoples’ lives, minds and bodies with this edict.
He is controlling their souls.
He is one of the most evil men to walk the earth. His sick mind has destroyed the will of these people.
God has made note of it.
His cult must be exposed for the evil it has wrought.
I didn’t make any stupid comments, you have taken things so out of context because you are blinded by tunnel vision. I am sorry you have chosen a path that maybe you aren’t called to because you can’t discuss it rationally.
I have dealt with inner city women, so I have a very clear perspective of what they deal with. I know what “choices” they have.
So before you accuse others of not knowing of what they speak, maybe you should educate yourself. Or maybe you should take a break from the internet, do something to relax your mind and spirit. You are way overboard, way out of control.
How many polygamists do you know IRL? How many?
I lived in an inner city and I worked with inner city women as well. I know the differences, you don’t. I don’t have tunnel vision, I have worked with both sides and know the differences.
Again, for the third time, I ask you HOW MANY POLYGAMISTS do you know IRL?
Or do you think that they are the same just because you say they are without you actually working with them?
I get fed up easily with people like you, who have no clue yet defend polygamy.
Again, for the third time, I ask you HOW MANY POLYGAMISTS do you know IRL?
Because unless you have worked with them, you don’t know and have no right to criticize me.
You seriously need to take a chill pill! I almost have to laugh at you now. But I am also worried you are going to give yourself a heart attack. Please, I meant you no disrespect. The question was posed why didn’t the government do anything. I stand by my assertion that they won’t because then they would have to deal with their own self-caused system in the inner cities, etc.
Any of these systems that causes dependence on the government, further advances the cause of the all powerful government, through reliance on social services, will be tolerated. Whether that be FLDS or other systems.
I feel passionately about the subject, in part because I have been shot at while rescuing these women and have received death threats because of my work with them.
Utah doesn’t do anything because they turn a blind eye and many still see polygamy as OK. Other states are different but the easiest thing to get them on is tax evasion and welfare fraud. These groups are not dumb by any means and know how to work the system. I have lobbied to get states to do more and I know people trying to get the polygamist group in South Dakota (part of Jeff’s group) shut down. It has nothing to do with the inner cities at all.
Now again, how many polygamists do you know IRL?
I am sorry this seems to so upset you, but I will not play a silly game with you. You have a problem with taking things out of context, and I am done with you. You are so out of line, that any compassion I may have felt for your plight has diminished to almost nothing because of my interactions with you today, on a silly message board. So sad.
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