Letters to the Editor
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Warren Jeffs didn't start this
There are some factual discrepencies in this albeit incredibly informative and important article about Warren Jeffs and the "lost boys." It is, firstly, unfair to compare the FLDS to The Church of Latter Day Saints by saying there is only "one key difference." Although polygamy is the most extreme difference between the FLDS and The Church of Latter Day Saints, there are myriad other important differences that distinguish the two. For example, many Fundamentalist Mormons believe that each person - not just the head (or prophet) of the Church - is able to receive direct communication from God. Joseph Smith "received" this message from God and this revelation is included, I believe, in the Mormon book called Doctrines and Covenants. Non-fundamentalist Mormons of the Church of Latter Day Saints believe that the president (prophet), currently Gordon B. Hinckley, is the only person fit to receive communication from God. This distinction between the FLDS and the Church of Latter Day Saints is a huge one, and one that has guided many Fundamentalist Mormons to extreme action, as pointed out in Jon Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven."
Sevcik says that "Jeffs banned holiday celebrations, forbade followers from listening to music except for the droning spiritual chants that he himself records, and prohibited all forms of worldly entertainment, including sports -- bowling, football, even snowball fights. Colorado City was run like a theocracy, with Jeffs its ayatollah." It should be noted that Jeffs' methods are not new to Colorado City, Ariz., nor are they new to the FLDS, which also boasts a large and polygamous community in Bountiful, Canada. Jeffs' predecessor, his father Uncle Rulon, was not much gentler a leader. Although Jeffs is even more rigid than the most recent predecessor, the idea of ratting out one's neighbors or excommunicating those whom the prophet didn't like or whom acted or spoke in ways the prophet deemed against God or the Church, are not ideas Jeffs invented, as Sevcik's article suggests by attributing this vicious behavior to Jeffs alone. Jeffs follows in a long line of extremist men who, as prophets, married young girls off to older, not-so-distant male relatives as soon as the girls reached puberty; barred members of the FLDS from reading newspapers or books from "the outside;" and, as was the case with Brigham Young himself, convinced their followers to engage in bloody battles with non-Mormons for preposterous and often invented reasons.
Of course the complex history of the FLDS, even in the last 30 years, cannot be fully unleashed in Sevcik's article. However, I thought it important to point out that Jeffs is not some newly outlandish radical amidst what was previously a gentle religious practice. The FLDS has been an extremely radical and remarkably Taliban-like group for decades. What is even more remarkable is that it has only been in the last few short years that the government in Utah and the federal government have begun to take action against what is essentially a religion-run community feeding off of public funds. I'd like to think Krakauer's book created a bit of an impetus for this, as I found his book to be a tour de force and explosive for any secret FLDS community.