Letters to the Editor
firefly82
Published Letters: 276 Editor's Choice: 30
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Totality of religious life
[Read the article: Warren Jeffs found guilty]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]davidsugarman writes <<anyone who thinks it's so easy to make a fourteen year old girl do what she doesn't want has never had a daughter>>
Anyone who talks like that has no idea of the compulsive power of a totalitarian religious system.
Of course everyone involved had free will, and I'm usually of the opinion that mature and sensible people should have the self-possession to make their own decisions in accordance with their own consciences. I'm usually the first to hold capable adults responsible for resisting coercion and popular pressure and making their own damn choices. But in Colorado City, Utah, the choices, as far as they knew, were as follows:
1. Obey the prophet.
2. Go to hell.
3. Leave the community and lose your entire family and all your friends, forever.
These aren't people sophisticated or knowledgable about the workings of the larger world; this isn't a cult that they joined. They were born into the exact same completely closed society that their great-grandparents probably were. Colorado City is out in the middle of literally nowhere, and the entire town government is controlled by the prophet. There is nowhere to turn for help. All the policemen, all the elected officials, all the judges, are under the thumb of the prophet.
And I think there's been a lot of trivialization of religious life and what religious belief means to people surrounding this case, as I mentioned earlier, particularly on the part of the defense lawyer. And it's not just fundamentalist or separatist or even conservative faiths...I'm a member of a very liberal and progressive denomination (that's okay with gay unions, evolution, a figurative and poetic reading of the Bible, and tough questions about what we believe)...and especially when you're raised in it from childhood, it affects EVERYTHING about how you think. The will of God is absolutely paramount. That's not necessarily a negative thing; it's just an inescapable one for religious believers.
I'm not saying at all that religious people are not responsible for their actions as members of society. Only that people who are saying they just don't understand how Wall was compelled into this marriage, just don't understand the engulfing emotional and rational power of a sincerely held belief system.
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Other cults
[Read the article: Warren Jeffs found guilty]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]davidsugarman again, <<to me it's just an odd cult like other odd cults.>>
And that's where you're dangerously mistaken.
The FLDS is an extremely large well-ingrained cult that has been utterly flaunting the rule of state and federal law for generations. The local government is completely under the control of the religion. It's a total theocracy. In the United States. There is no rule of law other than the word of Jeffs. There is no due process. There is rampant child abuse, rape, incest, and poverty. Hundreds of teenage boys have been kicked out into the desert, allegedly for sins like playing basketball or liking movies, but really because there just aren't enough teenage girls to go around to all the men who need at least three wives to get into heaven.
It's been allowed to continue unchallenged just because the last time the federal government tried to enforce the rule of US law, it was a "public relations disaster," and they've been spooked about the possibility of creating another Waco.
And Colorado City isn't, by far, the only place like this in the US--only the most well-known.
To second Valhalla, "Under the Banner of Heaven" is an excellent and important book on the subject.
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Last screed and I'm going to sleep, I promise...
[Read the article: Warren Jeffs found guilty]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Oh, boy, where to start....you raise a lot of good questions, davidsugarman, but the hour is late...
"you say there are three choices, obey, go to hell or break with the family."
No, I said that those are the choices as far as most of them know, the choices presented by the prophet in a very isolated, totalitarian system. Of course there are other choices for the very insightful and brave, but try to forget for a minute that you live in a first-world country, or have any of the material or public resources that you're used to, or anyone who would support you.
A man named DeLoy Bateman has done a lot of speaking out as someone who HAS managed to leave the religion. He's lived it and I haven't, so google him--you can probably find some explanations of his own concerning the mindset of these communities.
"people break with their families ALL THE TIME. people fall in love interracially people fall in love homosexually. it's not pleasant for them but they live on their own terms."
True. But I would say, usually, when teenagers or adults break with their families over life choices, they do so with some kind of social support, example from others, or some kind of idea of the choices available to them in the world. FLDS members have none of that. Re-read "1984" for a refresher course on how the very concepts of liberty and choice can be eliminated from a society's consciousness. The vast majority of the time, I agree with you that it is the job of adults to live on their own terms whether it's pleasant or not. But again, if you substitute "totalitarian system" for "cult," I think it gives a better idea of the perceived threat these people are living under.
"but there must be homosexuals and i'm sure they run away and leave their families."
I'm sure some eventually do, but a whole lot don't. Even in mainstream society, more gays than we like to think still marry, have children, convince themselves they've mastered their sinful nature, and live out lives of quiet, suffocating desperation.
I appreciate your story of your grandmother's shtetl. Here's what I understand about Judaism; please do tell me if I'm wrong. While, especially in Orthodox communities, there may be a high degree of religious control and conformity, and a very dominating ethos of a person's responsibility to his religion and community, Judaism also places extraordinary value on individual human life, and on an individual's own ability to communicate with G-d. And so when those things were seen to be endangered by forced marriage, your grandmother's community was able to exercise collective wisdom to stop it.
In the FLDS, there's no collective wisdom. There's no respect for individual ability to communicate with G-d. Only the prophet's word. I don't understand the girl's parents either, but again, try to think of them as living under a totalitarian regime.
I like to think that in her shoes I'd've behaved differently, defied the prophet, found a way to leave...but I can't know that. I'm afraid that few of us can.