I’ve long joked that SDAs are like the Libertarians of protestant denominations. They may have some good ideas, but they attract a boatload of crazies; and God knows, the crazies get all the press.*

Oh, you have no idea how embarrassing it was to watch the Libertarian Party national convention on C-SPAN last weekend.

Edited at 2008-05-29 06:45 pm (UTC)

Sure I do. I was raised SDA.
:)

That wasn't at all disjointed or rambly. Thank you for sharing this.

This makes perfect sense to me, but I'm similarly conflicted, although I didn't come from a similar religious background. I'm the moderator of modest_style; we've banned religious proselytising and anti-proselytising, because the whole point is to talk about clothes without arguing, we get enough of that; but I hear things on that comm sometimes that curl my hair.

Really? You're the moderator over there? I've heard good things about that community -- that it tries to be inclusive in a good way. Good on you for fighting the good fight.

Word to everything. Nothing is as simple as we'd like to make it.

Well said.

I'm working, so I can't really comment any further than that, but I think the kind of multi-layered holistic view you're talking about here is not just a good thing, but a necessary thing. You can't change behaviors without understanding them, on either a micro or a macro level.

This entire situation hits me right where I live. Something inside me keeps screaming CHILD ABUSE!! CHILD ABUSE!! and I'm having an incredible amount of difficulty thinking beyond that. I freaked out when I heard that the ACLU had filed an appeal that the texas authorities had violated the sect's civil rights. Again, that little girl inside started screaming OMFG!! ACLU ENDORSES CHILD ABUSE!! I wish I could be more objective about this, but I just can't.

As I understand it, the original complaints that led to the seizure of the children were falsified -- and the ACLU stepped in because (a). religious persecution should not be tolerated, and that's exactly what this looked like (b). false accusations did not lead to clear and obvious factual problems beyond Warren Jeffs personally -- and he was already in prison, and (c). the population in question was not well versed in the legal ways of the mainstream world.

Am I saying that the forced underaged marriages didn't occur? No. But I AM saying that the state of Texas didn't really have enough evidence to swoop in that way and remove 400 children from their parents. The feds overreacted because they were afraid that they'd acted too slowly in the past.

When it came to Waco, there had been multiple filed petitions by a social worker insisting that she thought something bad was going on inside the Waco compound ... but no one acted. So perhaps this time is an attempt to rectify that earlier failing of the system.

But in a free country, where religious oddity is tolerated so long as it does not break the law of the land ... accusing an entire sect of illegal activity in a blanket statement is a bad precedent to set. You can't strip hundreds of children from their homes because you heard, via an unsubstantiated phone call, that ONE had been mistreated. Especially since it's now been demonstrated that the original claim was false, and furthermore at least half of the "underaged mothers" have turned out to be of Texas's age of consent after all.

Will all of them be? Will this turn out to have been some huge, epic misunderstanding? I daresay probably not, no. But there were problems with the investigation and the seizure from the get-go. That's all I'm saying.

Anyway, I'm still working through what I think about the whole thing, obviously.

Nor is it made easier by several other facts. Like the fact that as recently as my grandparents' time (I should point out that I'm old, we're talking most of your readers' great-grandparents), it wasn't all that unusual in America for women to marry at 14. Or the fact that we're having some very complicated legal cases involving refugees from places like Bosnia and Sudan where people routinely marry at age 14 to 16; here in St. Louis, we just briefly threw an 18 year old war refugee in jail because his wife was (or may have been) 15 when he married her back in Sudan.

Because of that case, this has been coming up in conversation among my friends around St. Louis, and I've heard at least some people argue that "nature sets the age of consent; it's called puberty." But puberty is hitting as early as age 11 now. And we now know, neurologically, that from the onset of puberty to around age 25, human beings are clinically insane, biologically incapable of understanding the consequences of their actions. But then, it's not as if we're going to set the age of consent at 25.

Disgruntled ex members of FLDS colonies insist that at least some of the 14 and 15 year old brides do not go willingly, are taken forcibly with the help of multiple adults, forcibly raped, and maintained in captivity under guard. On the other hand, I'm deeply uncomfortable taking the word of disgruntled ex members of any religion about what the religion is really like; it's a bit too much like asking somebody's bitter ex-spouse for a character reference. But on the gripping hand, who else is there to ask?

I'll leave you with one last link to think about and maybe comment on. Sara Robinson over at the Campaign for America's Future wrote an essay arguing that what we're overlooking is that the FLDS may be dangerous for reasons unrelated to polygamy or child rape, and a nagging sense that we're facing a potentially murderous authoritarian cult may be part of what's motivating law enforcement to take an interest: "How Dangerous is the FLDS?," 4/22/08. In it, she uses a behavioral profile developed by the Canadian equivalent of the FBI and concludes that the FLDS scores roughly 39 on a possible scale of 1 to 60, only a few points short of the point at which many cults (including the Branch Davidians) go psycho and go to war against the government. On the other hand, she also points out that events like the recent attack on the FLDS are the kinds of things that tend to push groups those last few points of the way.

Thanks for the link, and the additional angle. I'll go read it when I get back from running errands.

YES. Thank you for such a well-articulated examination of the issues that rest at the nexus of pluralism and human rights. It is easy to say "the rights of a religion end where the law begins" but that casts a strong black/white shadow on a matter that is full of grays.

As a member of a minority religion myself (though at the opposite end of the religious spectrum than the FLDS or SDA), I have been concerned about the government's removal of the children. BUT... I wrestle with the allegations of abuse that led to the removal. I want to equivocate in some manner - couldn't they have just removed the children ages 11-16 and left the young'uns? But is it right not to remove all of the children, regardless of age, when investigating allegations of systemic child abuse?

There isn't an easy answer. But as someone with a faith considered "weird" by many Americans, I am paying close attention.

Thank you for ever so eloquently putting my jumbled thoughts into order. I too, am conflicted and from a vantage that stands outside the FLDS (or even LDS) church, yet is all too familiar with the acts that have occured.

When I was /much/ younger; I lived in a city that is 85% LDS. Even today, I know the slang ("Franklin" for planner, "CTR", "Priesthood Holder") and can identify the location of Temples by sight, from photographs. I am not LDS and yet my culture was.

When I went to College, I chose a College in Utah, a small school where there was a large proportion of "polyg" students. The men were exclusivly majoring in Forestry, Pre-Law or Pre-Med. The women exclusively in Elementary Education.

Through one show, I met a young lady who was not only raised in a poligamist household, she was the 4th wife of a man. She had 2 children prior to going to school, and saw her husband 1x a month, when he came into town and rented the two of them a hotel room for the weekend.

She saw what "the bigger world" was made of, from behind the wall of male bodies that always surrounded the females. Until she "recieved permission" to audition for the show. It was wonderful, through my 18 year-old (jaded.... ha!) eyes, her discover the world she hadn't even know existed.

She fell for one of the guys in the show and for all of a week, thought about leaving the life she had been raised in. But the call of familiar/duty outweighed her heart and she left school after the show and never returned.

I too, have been infected with the "Good Girl" illness, as preached by the LDS church. I find myself wanting to make everyone around me happy, becasue then I have found /my/ happiness. (Which is utter twaddle and thank goodness I have a DH who can ID the issues and hasn't given up on me yet.)

I watch these women, who are desperate to regain their children and the lives that were /simple/ to them. Brainwashed? Maybe. Is it just because I don't understand what it means to be a man's "Key to heaven" that I sneer at the TV and think "Well, at least there is a 12 year old girl who won't know what it means to be a 13 year old bride."? But I do understand what it means to be told to be "dutiful" and "place a smile on your face, until it finds it's own way there." (Fake it til you make it!)

Yet I have friends who are parts of (all adult) Triads and Quads. These people are not brainwashed and have stood and shouted loudest about forcing anyone into a particular mindset. (I think the phrase was "It's not for everyone, but it works for me.") They are raising children in a house that has multiple partners, and their children don't seem to have the same 1000 yard stare as the FLDS kids do.

I could go on and on (and have.... my apologies) about the conflict that I have. Thank you for telling (and showing me) that I am not the only one.

No no -- thank you, for chiming in.

Thank you for sharing your perspective on this, Cherie. I likewise feel ambivalent about the whole thing. On the one hand, I'm outraged to see the government stepping in to bust up families and a religious organization, and I don't think they have any more business telling you how many people to marry than they do what gender to marry, so long as everyone involved is giving their informed, uncoerced consent.

But that's not all we've got here, is it? I was happy to hear about the court ruling saying the cops overstepped their bounds, but I'm curious to see what exactly is going to happen in regard to the abuse allegations. I think when it's in a religious context like this, law enforcement tends to exaggerate claims of abuse, but then again, most domestic abuse stays hidden and unreported. It's tangled, alright. Thank you for your thoughts.

You know my role in the Adventist church...God help 'em, they're determined to make me froth at the mouth and dance like a dervish.

The things you bring up, the nature of happiness, the equality of women in religious movements, are ones that I wrangle with all the time.

I can say one thing...thank fuck the dormitory years are over.

The girls aren't old enough to consent before they're married off, and they aren't allowed to consent or refuse as adults. It's a system where they are told what and who they're going to do. I'm all for consenting adults being allowed to align themselves in whatever polyhedrons o' love they like, but this crosses a few sticky "no!" lines for me.

And to be fair, before their latest prophet stepped in, there was supposedly proper courting and consent all around. This assigning of young girls to old men is a return to the bad ol' days of frontier polygamizing, when it was all about the politics and not about the love.

Maybe Flava Flav is the man to solve this conundrum.

Cherie, this is a well articulated and thoughtful post about a troubling issue. Thanks.

I would write more of a comment but - deadlines.

Good post!

I'm sorry for interupting this serious thread with a not-so-serious comment, but every time I see this icon I am distinctly reminded of Mad Eye Moody. You look exactly how I always pictured him.

Thank you for posting this. It's rare to see discussions of this issue that include any nuance at all.

The other issue that is being overlooked in all the hand wringing of underage brides is the missing males. The ratio of sons to daughters is unnatural and there is a lot of suspicion as to what became of all those boys. The group controls their own records so they are not trustworthy.

See my second footnote for more on that one.

The greatest argument against the existence of God is the endless parade of atrocities committed in His name, enshrined as gospel, and perpetrated as holy institutions. Were I divine, no crime would be punished more swiftly or gravely than that.

You're talking about evil perpetuated by humans in the name of God only ... free will and all that. If there is a God, I imagine He shakes His at us on a regular basis.

Maybe someone out there believes I think I’m happy, but I’m not really.

Oh sweetheart, you were raised SDA and are so no longer. You know that's happening! :-P Because you just can't be happy unless your butt's in a church pew every Saturday morning--this are fact, I know it becuz of my learnings. ;-)

I'm right there with you--strangely fascinated with the whole thing, largely because of Waco.

But far be it from slathering media coverage to do its homework. Hell, the government couldn’t be bothered either.

And there are elements of this FLDS thing that raise the hairs on the back of my neck precisely because of this. No, underage forced marriages shouldn't be allowed...but it seems like there are plenty of other things that the government just finds weird that they think gives them license to jump in and muddle around. I think there are lines being crossed all over the place. Some of them may be necessary. But I get the feeling that some of what's going on is just plain curiosity, and fear of the 'different'.

"Preventative medicine"? Maybe. It's hard to tell. But what's harmful, and what's just different, and more importantly, who gets to decide that? It has far-reaching implications, which, given my background (which is also yours), does make me nervous.

Oh sweetheart, you were raised SDA and are so no longer. You know that's happening! :-P Because you just can't be happy unless your butt's in a church pew every Saturday morning--this are fact, I know it becuz of my learnings. ;-)

Oh cripes ... I believe you have a point ... heh...

Dang it! Your site is blocked as ADULT CONTENT here at work. I'll have to read this when I get home.

Yanno, it's had that problem for years. And I have NO IDEA WHY. Sorry 'bout that.

You're right, it's a heavily nuanced problem, a delicate balance between religious freedoms and the OMG EW that the pictures of Warren Jeffs kissing child brides causes.

I often wonder if the FLDS women are happy, and suspect that, well, some of them are, at least. If only because that's what they know. I'm betting that a great many of them would be no happier living my life than I would be thrust into theirs.

Just, y'know, where do you draw the line? Religious freedom is important, but there's just something that seems so damn wrong about forcing 12 year old girls to marry 50 year old men and have more babies to perpetuate the cycle. I might feel differently about the FLDS church if it had, as the Amish do, a tradition of young men & women being sent out into the world so they could make some sort of at least mildly informed choice.

All one can do is provide information. Note that this information may be proclaimed "propaganda" and dismissed. But that's all you can do.

That's why the totalitarian governments out there censor and/or block everything. I suspect that's why Myanmarians are dying instead of getting foreign aid.

This is why Freedom of Speech is part of the First Amendment, along with Freedom of Religion.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

In the beginning, things looked simple. Allegation of abuse, underage women being married off, slam dunk for the protective services. Now... now it's complicated. As most botched actions turn out to be.

Analogue to other religion to follow. May require dandelions. I was raised Catholic, and while at the time, it didn't seem weird, right now I'm looking back on the Confirmation ritual (where one becomes an "adult" in the church and swears fealty to Ceiling Cat) and thinking, WTF? Why does the Catholic Church think that 14-15 year-olds can make decisions like this, when the secular law won't permit them to do many other adult things, like voting, until they are 18 or older? Secular law won't let those young kids explore their sexuality at this point, most of them probably haven't been exposed to the fullness of belief systems out there, and yet they're supposed to be mature enough to decide to commit to their religion for the rest of their life.

So here in the FLDS, these young girls are being asked a similar sort of question, but one that also involves their sexuality (which they may not have explored all that much, if at all), and is a much bigger and more permanent commitment than just profession of faith. That's a tough decision to make for someone that young without any additional pressure or expectation piled on.

I wonder if what galls most of us about the whole situation is that it looks like many of the young children in the compound had no idea of a larger world outside and would have received no chance at all to experience it and decide for themselves whether they wanted to return to the world they grew up in.

OOh, you touched on another thing I've lately come to...realize(?): The coming of age rituals and how they -might- be contributing to teen pregnancy.

Okay, I have no data and no proof other than wondering...

But if your religion tells you that you're not a child anymore but instead a (wo)man, what are you to think?

On the other hand, I have gone through no such ritual and I have no children. I think this may be why I still act a bit childish...

thank you for this. Echoing so many others, my own thoughts are pretty tangled. I don't have the proximity to it that you do, but I find myself often moved to paralyzing indecision because I'm just too good at seeing things from every side. I'm going to think more before I add additional commentary, but thank you again all the same.

Very good post. As in much of life, it's not as simple as it looks.

I was going to blather on about what I thought and then give you a link to an NPR story.

Instead, now that I've blathered all over other people's comments, I'll just give you the link.

Philly's Black Muslims Increasingly Turn to Polygamy

For some Muslims, polygamy is a way to provide stable relationships in the inner-city neighborhood.

Edited at 2008-05-29 11:08 pm (UTC)

These people are about 90 years old as a group, inbred as all hell, with accompanying high rates of mental retardation and physical disabilities; they do keep birth records; most of them have birth certificates, Social Security cards, even passports in some cases (some of the men have worked as contractors in Iraq)-- because they need the documents to continue their long history of using welfare, food stamps, Medicaid, etc-- before welfare reform basically all the secondary wives were on welfare. They are well-known to social services in Utah, Arizona, Idaho, and more recently British Columbia and Texas. They kick out most-- perhaps 3/4-- of young males, in some cases as young as 13, simply driving them into or close to a town and leaving them off there with nothing but the clothing they are wearing, and telling them they are excommunicated, dead, never to return. At least 400 such young males have been left off in Utah and Arizona in the last 4 years alone, to be assisted by shelters, police, social service agencies, group homes, etc. Until about 7 years ago the kids all went to public schools-- they needed documents for that, too. The year that Rulon Jeffs ordered them to homeschool, one school district lost 950 of its 1200 students, since most of the students were FLDS. The members in general own nothing, not even the clothes on their backs-- cars, house trailers,household goods, books, clothes-- everything belongs to the church. They have long been in trouble for welfare fraud and underage "marriages". I am in favor of consenting, self-supporting adults doing as they please. These people involve non-consenting children, and they rely on society as the Beast they can bleed financially.