[Choose Ye This Day]

This is truly shocking, and powerful evidence that the FLDS cult is damaging and abusing each successive generation of offspring.

[count-your-change]

Oliver Wendall Holmes thought he had a solution to a similar problem. Anyone recall that?

[dennisw]

Inbreeding also leads to stupidity and retardation. Making the women more compliant and putting up with these horndog “patriarchs” and the sex club they established. The men are getting stupider too due to inbreeding

Polygamy and inbreeding probably go together because the Muslim Arabs are well known for this. Lots of weirdo inbreeding in the Palestinian population and Israeli scientists have done a few studies

The way these polygamists rip off the welfare system is an outrage.

[humblegunner]

FLDS and country music.. both proudly promoting inbreeding!

[caver]

“This is truly shocking, and powerful evidence that the FLDS cult is damaging and abusing each successive generation of offspring.”

If this is true, then they are breeding themselves out of existence. Problem solved.

[wastoute]

While this is a heartbreaking story, it is hardly earthshaking. Read about Maple Syrup Urine Disease, literally ALL of the people affected live in Lancaster, PA. If you want to read further try Tay-Sachs, and others. Sure this is the very reason we don't marry cousins but to wave this around like it deserves special attention is curious. Sure this is why we have judges authorize marriage certificates and this IS the foundation of governmental involvement in approval of marriage but in an era where most children are born “out of wedlock” it strikes me as folks clamoring about this are raising the alarm after the cows are out of the barn. The real issue is death of marriage as one man one woman and castigating polygamists isn't going to advance that goal. 20 complete care children is a family tragedy, but hardly the Medicaid crippling burden the authors would like to suggest.

The problem is these polygamists have rejected society and it's norms and some of us think by “being outraged” we can get society to recognize there are reasons for social norms. Good luck. We have a better chance of dealing with illegitimacy and poverty directly than by fighting a “proxy war”.

[yatros from flatwater]

...""If you cross a Barlow and Jessop, you stand a high risk of getting this condition," Tarby says.

..."Aleck says the fact that so many people in the polygamist enclave are blood relatives of the founding Barlow and Jessop families "shows the magnitude of the problem."

So, the judge in the FLDS "abuse" case is ordering DNA testing in order to find evidence of who bred with whom - when these folks are more inbred than the royal families of Europe? All the DNA will be closely matched, and therefore, inconclusive.

[auboy]

Truly shocking, indeed. Evil incarnate!

[greyfoxx39]

Ping

[FastCoyote]

“The ‘gene’ that Warren is really selecting for,” Wyler says, “is the ‘obedience gene.’

“Joseph Smith was also selecting for the ‘obedience gene.’ He was kicking people out, too, who weren’t obedient.

I’ve thought this for a while as well. The only ones who remain in the Mormon church have to remain willfully ignorant of other options. Some of the debates here prove this.

[commonguymd]

Here is some of the evidence presented in the McMartin preschool trial courtesy of Wiki. There were hoards of news reports, wild speculations, rumors, conflicting interviews and media hysterics if you remember. I will wait, and I certainly won’t indict a whole religion based on an offshoot no matter what.

---

Some of the accusations were bizarre.[6] It was alleged that, in addition to having been sexually abused, they saw witches fly, traveled in a hot-air balloon, and were taken through underground tunnels.[4] When shown a series of photographs by Danny Davis, the McMartins’ lawyer, one child identified actor Chuck Norris as one of the abusers.[3] There were claims of orgies at car washes and airports, and of children being flushed down toilets to secret rooms where they would be abused, then cleaned up and presented back to their unsuspecting parents. Some children said they were made to play a game called “Naked Movie Star” in which they were photographed nude.[1][4]

“What surprised me as an investigative journalist was that nobody looked beyond the seemingly fanciful nature of the disclosures. Nobody tried to interpret what the disclosures might mean through a child’s frame of reference and perception. Nobody searched for plausible explanation....children talked about...improbable events like jumping out of airplanes and seeing a horse killed. Yet, investigators did not track reports that Raymond Buckey had a friend who ran a special effects studio or that Virginia McMartin’s sister owned a horse ranch.”[5]

Wayne Satz, at the time a reporter for the Los Angeles ABC affiliate television station KABC, reported on the case and the children’s allegations. He presented an unchallenged view of the children’s and parents’ claims.[13] Satz later entered into a romantic relationship with Kee MacFarlane, the social worker at the Children’s Institute International, who was interviewing the children. Another instance of media conflict of interest occurred when David Rosenzweig, the editor at the Los Angeles Times overseeing the coverage, became engaged to marry Lael Rubin, the prosecutor.[14]