After growing up in the hell of polygamy and its inevitable sexual abuse, Flora has risked her life to help others who are caught in the web of polygamy to escape.
She minces no words. If you want the undiluted truth about polygamy, Flora tells it.
Sorry, I've got no sympathy for them. They victimize and should be made to pay for their crimes.
I still believe that consenting adults should be able to marry legally and should be subject to statutory rape laws and child abuse laws, if they participate in abuse.
I personally don't like the idea of polygamy but I think it should be a legal choice.
I think if I have the chance to explain my human rights theory, I can show that legalizing polygamy is not in anyone's best interest. When people say that it's OK if it involves consenting adults, I don't think they completely understand what they mean by "consent." Even among the adults, in the business of Mormon fundamentalism, the notion of consent is deeply compromised, since part of the reason that women exist is so that men can use them as a means to reach "exaltation." Inherently, the system is filled with human rights abuses. Even the adults don't actually have consent the way people have it outside their system. So it is not at all like comparing them with Muslims.
In Islam, only the extremists commit terrorist acts. But under Mormon fundamentalism, everyone is part of a system that inherently causes injustices, inevitably. The only way to avoid these threats of an unjust system, one must refrain from practicing divinely imperative polygyny altogether.
Duress, by definition, is a threat to genuine consent, even when it concerns people above age 18. When we see polygamists who seem "normal" and harmless, it's easy to forget that what they do causes considerable unnecessary duress. The system is harmful; inherently so.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2010 06:24PM by Troy.
I understand what you're saying. Many Mormon historically based modern day polygamous groups are repugnant to my way of thinking.
It's always a tricky balancing act to determine how to have a free society while protecting potential victims. That's why I think that adults should be free to group themselves in families besides the traditional one man, one woman, and yet all adults must be subject to providing basic levels of care and protection to children.
I know polygamists who wouldn't DREAM of taking an underage wife. I know polygamists who think Warren Jeffs is a monster. I know polygamists who think their children should know about the rest of the world and not be shielded from it.
In other words I know polygamists who, except for the fact that they are polygamists and have the old-style Mormon beliefs are a lot like anyone else.
There are polygamists and then there are polygamists. To paint all people of one belief system based on the behavior of some extremists is what we all tend to do.
I also personally know quite a few Muslims. But I've never met a Muslim who didn't think the 9/11 attacks were a horrible crime. "They are not true Muslims," they would tell me.
So by all means bring criminals to justice whether their crimes are based on religious beliefs or not, but don't paint all who share a core belief with the brush of the extremists.
It isn't a matter of painting everyone with the same brush, as far as BELIEFS are concerned. Mormon fundamentalism is not just polygamy. It is actually a divine moral imperative to practice "polygyny." So the imbalance of rights between the sexes is built right in. As soon as they start practicing polygamy, they cause a shortage of available females. What they "believe" isn't necessarily the cause of this, it is unaviodable in the "practice" of polygyny.
I certainly know my share of Mormon fundamentalists who wouldn't touch an underage bride, but it is their practice of polygyny that makes underage girls end up being the only females who are "available."
I know polygamists who condemn underage marriage, yet they've engaged in it themselves. Case in point, my father. They rationalize that because their girls are part of "God's only true ________________," their girls are more mature than others. But then we have to talk about their suspicion about education. Being uneducated is part of what it means to be immature.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 09/29/2010 06:26PM by Troy.
>"I know polygamists who wouldn't DREAM of taking an underage wife. I know polygamists who think Warren Jeffs is a monster."
To drop a name--since you've posted in the past about history--I'm reminded of an e-mail from Will Bagley in which he discusses one of the Mormon "whitewashes" of MMM (written years after the massacre) where some higher-ups from Salt Lake interviewed some surving participants and Will pointed out that it doesn't seem to have occurred to these people they were asking the murderers about the crimes they've committed...
Ever watched a video of a pedophile being confronted with overwhelming evidence of their actions and the denial remaining intact? BTW, I didn't see the video when I was doing my internships; I saw the real thing...
>"I know polygamists who think their children should know about the rest of the world and not be shielded from it."
You owe me the price of a couple of bullchip filters for that one; that's pure nonsensical spin... They're taught that the rest of the world is evil, and they're the "speshul ones" (where do you think modern-day Mormons got the idea?). Those living in mainstream Utah culture are taught to keep secrets at all costs (an "us versus them" mentality that has horribly toxic ramifications from a psychological point of view). And that mentality fosters the perceptual blindness where the excesses of the more abusive groups such as FLDS or the Kingstons are tolerated or minimized.
And nearly all of the various sects intermingle from time to time (at least that helps curb some inbreeding), and it's common for them to "change sects" from time to time...
Incidentally, that's a serious insult you lobbed with that "what we all tend to do [based on some extremists]" paintbrush; some of us were raised--admittedly "in opposition" to Mormon beliefs--otherwise.
I'm also old enough to remember the Civil Rights efforts of the '60's when claims such as yours were being tossed at activists who were labeled extremists. Now we celebrate Rosa Parks, James Meredith, and Martin Luther King as heroes, but they were villains to many in their day.
Polygamy is against the law in the United States. The Supreme Court upheld that law over a century ago, and it's not going to change.
It is also inherently abusive (just as the Court ruled in Brown vs. the Board that "separate was inherently inequal"). Rampant welfare fraud, rampant sexual abuse, and rampant exploitation of women and children, are only the tip of the iceberg.
And can the crime be prosecuted? Or is it more about someone's anger and ideas about what is right for other people? That is predominately what I read here: highly emotionally driven opinions. This topic is a hot bed of controversy, replete with a wide variety of opinions.
Polygamy involves a lot of different societies and groups over the history of humanity. It is lived very, very differently.
I don't see any of it going away. It is going to be around as long as there are human beings that want to live that kind of life style, religious or otherwise.
How it is lived is totally dependent on who has the power to control other people's lives and to what extent.
SusieQ, if you aren't going to point out where my reasoning goes wrong, then don't insinuate that I'm simply driven by anger. Either put up or shut up. There's a lot of emotion going on here, but a lot of honest work too. You're in no position to question my professional integrity.
Troy Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > SusieQ, if you aren't going to point out where my > reasoning goes wrong, then don't insinuate that > I'm simply driven by anger. Either put up or shut > up. There's a lot of emotion going on here, but a > lot of honest work too. You're in no position to > question my professional integrity.
Clearly,my comments are general statements and observations,descriptions, etc., not directed at anyone personally.
I have all the books listed,and a lot more."The Lost Boys" is one of the saddest books I've ever read. All the books are heartbreaking and it's hard to believe people actually live like that. The top level men are all jerks and have no respect for women or boys as they become teenagers. I love it that more and more former polygamists are telling their stories.
I know her personally. This book is the real thing. The contradictory information is due to the endless character assassination the FLDS directs her way. They're cowards and she rocks their world.
Flora tells it like it is in a level of detail that would make anyone squirm. She is a huge threat to the abusers in FLDS society. She also isn't ashamed of the skeletons in her closet and she lays it all out in the open graphically. This makes her untouchable in a certain way.
I ordered her book, and then encountered the story online by Martha Barlow Jessop who is her aunt, or step?!mother or one of several step-grandmas - and it made me wonder if Flora's account was possibly wrong or delusional. Athough I thought Martha's story was coming from a very suspect source, given the structure of their culture.
But after reading a few pages of "Church of Lies" I feel that I am hearing the appalling truth of this vile culture. My loathing of Joseph Smith has reached new heights. He created this system and enabled such cruelty and inhumane depravity.
Such "Christians" have no business sneering at the decadence of the Roman Empire or Sodom & Gommora.