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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
sophiebrown
Published Letters: 28 Editor's Choice: 8
Is a terrific book about Colorado City and fundamentalist Mormon sects, which I would recomment for anyone with an interest in this issue.
According to the book, the people in Colorado City are committing massive welfare fraud, by misrepresenting the status of later wives and their children. Although they live in household with their nasty old "husbands" they receive welfare as though they are single mothers with children. The federal government puts in about eight federal dollars for every tax dollar paid from that county, so the reality is that we are actually subsidizing their disgusting activities. Many members of that community are proud of the welfare fraud, and consider it to be part of their religious mission to "bleed the beast." Welfare fraud is crime regardless of one's religious affiliation.
I have thought that having Michael Leavitt as head of HHS provides a unique opportunity to challenge these practices. He was governor of Utah and is quite familiar with Colorado City. He is also a mainstream mormon, and these people have generally done their best to distinguish themselves from there fundi brethran. I think someone should organize a letter writing and public information campaign to directed to Leavitt to stop this welfare fraud.
You claim that it is "hysterical" to challenge the ability of young girls brought up in distorted and abusinve families to freely consent to marriage. There is nothing hysterical about it. It is responsible and mature to consider the lack of free will involved. Whether a lack of consent could be found as a legal matter, or whether first amendment concerns get in the way of prosecuting, are other matter. But it certainly is not "hysterical" to point out that this is an acute problem begging for a solution.
Let's point out some differences between the situation in colorado city and that of an autonomous 16 year old consenting to marriage.
1. This is pretty important and obvious -- most of these girls do not legally marry their partners. Their partners already have legal wives so most of these girls enter households already consisting of one legal wife and multiple unmarried wives to have unprotected sexual relations with older men.
2. This is more subtle -- most of these "marriages" are initiated by the parents and not the children. So this is not a question of parents consenting to a relationship entered into by a child. It is a question of the child being compelled to consent to a "marriage" arranged by a parent.
3. The child is told by their parents and by the elders in the community that, if they do not consent to marriage they will burn in hell. If they were to reject they would also be shunned and probably thrown out of their homes. Kind of negates the concept of free will, huh?
Again, constraints and slippery slopes may make it difficult to find a meaningful legal solution to this problem (I like the welfare fraud angle myself). But to pretend like it's not a problem is gross and distorted. In fact, I have to question your motives in doing so.
In about 1998 I was a divorced single mom with a three year old. I worked full time, and spent the rest of the time with my son. Table Talk late at night WAS my social life. (Can't remember what my handle was back then, or I'd tell you.) Anyway, one late night I lamented on one of the more personal threads about my lonely existence, and someone I had come to cyber-trust said I really should try one of the on-line matchmaking services. On the strength of that, I did, and I met the man I married in 2001. He loves my kid, and changed my life dramatically for the better. So I have a real soft spot for Salon as it celebrates its first decade. Yours was the one of the first online communities, and I sure feel lucky to have been a part of it.
My adolescence and college years were a haze of weight obsession and bulemia. But it ended a long time ago. I am about Ayelet's age, and I can honestly say that my middle aged friends and I are are very very far beyond self-loathing about what we eat. Sometimes we are chubby, sometimes we are just right, sometimes we diet and lose ten pounds and feel proud then slowly gain it back. But it is never about self-loathing. There are far more substantial things to worry about, far better ways of determining our self-worth.
I just want readers to be clear that self-loathing about food is not universal among forty-something women. In fact, for me and my friends, surrendering a bit of youth in order to be free from obsessiveness about weight and appearance is not such a bad deal.
Kelly writes:
She is just expressing how she feels, which is good for women, especially on a subject where so many feel the same way. We will never get anywhere on these issues if we can't be honest about what society/patriarchy/consumer culture has done to the body image of women in this country.
My point, Kelly, is that "so many" don't feel the same way. "So many" -- almost everyone that I know -- stopped obsessing about their weight when they hit their forties (if not before). I don't want people to get the impression that women in their forties are still stuck in the size-two fantasies of their twenties. Most of us aren't.
Those who continue to obsess are the ones hanging on to that "culture of thinness" you abhore. You are giving it life, and that's no good for us or for our children.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
