FLDS Parents Could Face Charges for Abandoning their "Lost Boys"

KCPW News ^ | February 14, 2008

[Zakeet]

They're called the "Lost Boys," the teenagers kicked out of their homes and communities by leaders of the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to ensure there's an ample supply of single, young women who will one day become plural wives. Representative Lorie Fowlke (R-Orem), is running a bill to make this abandonment a felony.

"Estimates are that we've had more than 1,000 children - primarily in southern Utah - thrown out of their homes," Fowlke says. "What we were trying to do with this bill is criminalize this behavior and send a message to this community that they can't just throw away their children."

H.B. 23 adds child abandonment to the definition of child abuse, and makes it a felony crime. It also adds an enhancement if a parent or organization benefits from the child's abandonment to further an illegal enterprise, such as polygamy. This is the case with the FLDS church, says Roger Hoole, a lawyer who represents some of the displaced young men and sits on the board for the Utah Association for Justice. He says the church benefits from kicking out young men who would compete for plural wives. This, he says, has devastating consequences.

"There's a huge impact that's coming, like a tsunami, that's going to hit the state of Utah, when these boys get a little older and realize what has happened to them and get angry," Hoole says. "There's a real problem here."

Fowlke's bill gained unanimous support in a Senate committee this morning, and now heads to the full Senate for consideration.

[pby]

I’ve already answered no. 1.

Ah...yes (sort of). In regard to what salvation is and how a non-Mormon obtains it...you responded:

Posted by lady lawyer to pby

On Religion 02/22/2008 11:20:31 PM EST · 440 of 1,280

If you believe in Christ and accept his atonement in remission of your sins, you will be “saved” in the sense that you will receive a degree of “glory” in the hereafter greater than you can imagine.

In order to receive exaltation, you must do more.

And I responded to your answer with this question:

Posted by pby to lady lawyer

On Religion 02/24/2008 11:40:56 AM EST · 908 of 1,280

What happens to you if you don't believe In Christ and accept His atonement?

How do you accept His atonement...What is involved with that?

To which...you did not respond.

Do you care to respond, now?

Also...especially if your handle implies that you are truly an attorney, you know that you did not specifically answer questions 2 and 3. I did not ask about "teen marriages". I asked:

2. Does polygamous marriage, with teenage girls, constitute child abuse?

3. Did Joseph Smith commit child abuse in his polygamous marriages with teenage girls?

These are "yes" or "no" questions, counselor.

So...which is it - "yes" or "no"?

[ansel12]

” Women not married by the age of 21 were considered old maids.”

---

http://i4m.com/think/polygamy/teen_polygamy.htm

>”In fact, look up the marriage ages in the Smith family before polygamy. You’ll find that one of the Smith girls was 19. The rest of them, and their sisters-in-law, were in their early 20s when they married. The Smith boys’ first wives were in their 20s. The same pattern was true for the various branches of my family and the rest of American society at the time.

On the extremely rare occasions women younger than 17 married, it was to men close to their same age, not 15 to 20 years older.

The case is even true in pioneer Utah among first marriages. Mormon men in their twenties started out marrying someone their own age. Then later these older men married girls under twenty to be their plural wives. But the first wives were the age of the husband and married over the age of twenty. This is still the case is the rural Utah polygamist communities.”<

References:

Coale and Zelnik assume a mean age of marriage for white women of 20 (1963: 37). Sanderson’s assumptions are consistent with a mean of 19.8 years (Sanderson 1979: 343). The Massachusetts family reconstitutions revealed somewhat higher mean ages. For Hingham, Smith reports an age at first marriage of 23.7 at the end of the eighteenth century (1972: Table 3, p. 177). For Sturbridge, the age for a comparable group was 22.46 years (Osterud and Fulton 1976: Table 2, p. 484), and in Franklin County it was 23.3 years (Temkin-Greener, H., and A.C. Swedlund. 1978. Fertility Transition in the Connecticut Valley:1740-1850. Population Studies 32 (March 1978):27-41.: Table 6, p. 34).

Jack Larkin, The Reshaping of Everyday Life, 1790-1840 (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 63; Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Good Wives: Image and Reality in the Lives of Women in Northern New England, 1650-1750 (NY: Oxford University Press, 1980), 6; Nancy F. Cott, “Young Women in the Second Great Awakening in New England,” Feminist Studies 3 (1975): 16. Larkin writes,

Dr. Dorothy V. Whipple, Dynamics of Development: Euthenic Pediatrics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966)

[ansel12]

>”Age at marriage for women of complete families increased over the period from 19.3 in 1680-1709 to 25.3 from 1800-1809. The pattern of change parallels that of the decrease in mean number of children ever born. The most substantial increases in female age at 1st marriage occurred at the same times as the most substantial decreases in mean number of children. The patterns of 1st marriage for males is different prior to 1740. Nantucket men 1st married at an average age of about 24; between 1740-80 the age dropped 1 year and after 1780 it rose steadily until it reached 25.6.<”

{Fertility transition in a New England commercial center: Nantucket, Massachusetts, 1680-1840.}
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?db=pubmed&uid=11632300&cmd=showdetailview&indexed=google

[pby]

Just because we get tired of responding to people who bait us...

I told you, Elsie...This is the second time, on this thread, that a Mormon has used the "tired" excuse.

ADD IT TO YOUR LIST!

And, Lady Lawyer, if you truly possess the truth, then you should be able to easily avoid "getting hooked" by providing a reasonable response to any question.

[lady lawyer]

You are not really looking to understand us and what we believe. You are trying to play “gotcha.” I don’t want to play anymore.

[SkyPilot]

Sheesh - how did I miss this thread last week?

Quite the fireworks, and I only got through the first 500 posts.

Regarding the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS), here is a news story from yesterday:

Warren Jeffs Set to Enter Plea in Ariz.

Excerpt:

KINGMAN, Ariz. (AP) — Polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs has already been sentenced in Utah to two consecutive terms of five years to life in prison. Now Arizona prosecutors get their shot at the Mormon fundamentalist.

Jeffs was scheduled to make his first court appearance in Arizona on Wednesday, where his lawyer says he'll plead not guilty to sex charges stemming from the arranged marriages of two teenage girls to older men. Arizona prosecutors filed charges against Jeffs even before he faced charges in Utah, where he was convicted last year of rape as an accomplice in the arranged marriage of a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin.

_{Mohave County Sheriff's Office Capt. Greg Smith hands out a press release in Kingman, Ariz prior to holding a news conference where it was announced that polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs was handed over to Arizona authorities Tuesday Feb. 26, 2008. Jeffs was handed over to Arizona authorities Tuesday to face sex charges stemming from the arranged marriages of two teenage girls to older relatives. Jeffs, who has already been convicted in Utah, has an initial court appearance in Arizona scheduled for Wednesday morning. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin)}

[Zakeet]

Article already posted (and generally ignored by most Saints) HERE.

[Godzilla]

As for teen marriages, on those days, people got married younger. My great grandmother, not a polygamous wife, was 15 or 16. It was normal.

Do you have a citation that it was "normal"? Or if it was 'normal' was it because of forced arrangements like the FLDS do? BTW, Joseph Smith married Helen Mar Kimball in May 1843. He was 37 and she was 14. This is not normal by any standard of the century, he was more than old enough to be her father and already had multiple other wives at the time.

[Godzilla]

Sheesh - how did I miss this thread last week?

Gotta quit sleeping on the job.

[pby]

You are not really looking to understand us and what we believe. You are trying to play “gotcha.” I don’t want to play anymore.

You never did "play"...

So you offer a half response on salvation...and then you offer an inaccurate median age for marriage, in the 1800's, (Helen Mar Kimball was 14 at the time of her plural marriage to Joseph Smith and (11) of Smith's wives were between the ages of fourteen and twenty - this was below the median age of marriage, at the time)...and then you just walk away from the conversation, lady lawyer?

Is there not one among you who can provide reasonable answers to direct questions?

If you possess the truth, you should be able to.

Why can't you provide reasonable answers to direct questions?

[lady lawyer]

Pearls/swine.

[Godzilla]

Pearls/swine.

Another standard non-answer answer.

[lady lawyer]

It’s straight out of the Bible. It should therefore satisfy you. Jesus refused to debate with Pharisees. He knew it would do no good. He is good example.

[Tennessee Nana]

It’s straight out of the Bible. It should therefore satisfy you. Jesus refused to debate with Pharisees. He knew it would do no good. He is good example.
_____________________________________________

Biblical source ????

[Godzilla]

It’s straight out of the Bible. It should therefore satisfy you. Jesus refused to debate with Pharisees. He knew it would do no good. He is good example.

Did Jesus do this as a global policy. Are pby questions "holy" because that is the context of Jesus' remark:

Mt 7:6 - Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you.

What is holy about the question posted - is forced polygamous marriage of a 14 yr old condoneable? And as such is it child abuse?

[pby]

It was not normal, Godzilla.

lady lawyer was inaccurate, or possibly misrepresented, in regard to the median age of marriage in the 1800's.

The median age was above 20. This is, obviously, much higher than the 14 year old, Helen Mar Kimball.

[sevenbak]

Sigh,

This is exactly what I mean. Even if both of these statements by McConckie or Pratt, if taken as doctrine, come nowhere close to saying that blacks were part of “Satan’s Army.” That is completely impossible in the realm of LDS thought. To be part of the 1/3 of the hosts of heaven that fought against God, means no body, no earthy life, period. Can you not see how you are manipulating and using ‘half truths’ to make your points?

This is why I lack the desire to debate you. It's one eternal round of chasing your tail.

Now, as to McConkie and Pratt, neither of these examples are LDS doctrine, in fact, McConkies book was pulled from further printings, pulled from teh shelves, and McConkie was reprimanded by the First Presidency for elements of his book, it is NOT Mormon doctrine, despite the name. That is McConkies book, not sanctioned by the LDS.

[pby]

You said that you didn't want to play anymore...and then you post:

Pearls/swine.

That wasn't very nice.

So...at first, you said that you could provide reasonable answers...and now that you haven't, you claim that your truth is a pearl and that I am a swine not worthy of giving the truth to.

That isn't nice, at all!

First of all, you haven't convinced me that your "truth" is a pearl, let alone the truth, and secondly, what makes me a swine? How do I become an un-swine?

How are you ever going to convince anyone that you have the truth when you won't answer simple/direct questions?

By the way, what is the specific context of the pearl and swine in the Bible?

[sevenbak]

It’s not a run away tactic, it’s simply not a run into tactic. Big difference.

[Godzilla]

McConkies book was pulled from further printings, pulled from teh shelves, and McConkie was reprimanded by the First Presidency for elements of his book, it is NOT Mormon doctrine, despite the name. That is McConkies book, not sanctioned by the LDS.

Ummmmm, you are wrong there. The first edition was rebuked by the GA. However there have been subsequent editions published with the knowledge and approval of the GA.