MH workers: State punished good mothers and good children

I watched this on 20/20 last night - the woman you referenced is today in her early 20's -- when most of our (the people of this board) children are just starting to think of marriage and parenthood.

Some of the things she shared that have stayed with me to ponder:

A 14 she had no idea where baby's came from, and no knowledge whatsoever about sex nor sexual relations.

Following the rules of her church and requesting that she not be forced to -- she felt it was wrong, she was not ready, she was terribly frightened...she was told her stepfather (the father she got after the elders of the church decided that her biological father was not the right one to be her mother's husband) and the church leader that they knew what was best for her and she should just do as she was told.

She was forced to marry her 19 year old 1st cousin. She refused to say "I do" numerous times during the ceremony, until she felt she had no other choice. Keep in mind that she had a life where to deny the prophet was the same as to deny God.

She knows today that it was wrong to be forced to do sexual acts she was uncomfortable with, and which she asked not to happen to her were infact rape - for the two+ years she endured this she worked very hard at being the wife/daughter her church told her she should be.

She tells of finding away to sneak off into the dessert to be away from her life, and once having a miscarriage (one of several) while out there by herself.

I'm all for people having the right to the religion of their choice, even if it involves believing that your leader is a prophet sent by God to be the voice of God (sounds a lot like Joseph Smith doesn't it?)...I also beleive that when the voice(s) are telling you it's okay to rape and harm children, and other innocent persons it's time for someone outside your church to step in and protect the children and the innocent.

It does not please me to also admit that the men on this thread who are voicing it is alright to do these things sound like they would be happy to join this church? Show do you spell "creepy"?

Marlene

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It is the one with persistence and determination that brings great ideas into being.

I saw this young woman interviewed as well...

it was enough to convince me how sick and twisted these "marriage arrangements" were..

The young woman handled herself really well - I was impressed. She was onsite the day the officials went into the compound. To help bridge the gap between the members of the sect and officials. She said officials were gentle, and understanding, they did everything they could to explain what was happening. And what touched me, is that although she believes her family and fellow members of the sect now think she is evil for leaving the sect - she still loves them all.

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You shall judge a man by his foes as well as his friends
~J. Conrad

True. Religion is fine and faith is fine, but one needs to hang onto the good sense God gave them so that when some pervert comes up and says, "God told me to marry your daughter" you don't just hand the poor kid over.

I can't see signing up to be a victim factory for pedophiles. That's obscene.

Something that really gets me is the girls have NO knowledge of sex, or the "mechanics" of it--can you imagine how frightened and terrified they are on their "wedding" night? They have no clue what's happening--that seems to really ramp up the rape trauma. I just feel so sorry for them.

Being from Texas....and worse, having lived in REALLY small town, VERY rural Texas...I believe there is a cultural difference between those people, and those of us on this board.

I know areas in rural Texas where they haven't had an original THOUGHT in their family for seven generations....we will not speak of original blood.

As a volunteer firefighter when I lived in Texas, I have been to rural areas of Texas where they shot at the fire trucks, because "You folks ain't from around here and don't belong here." Being "from around here" meaning that you haven't spent at least 3 generations of your family within this 5 mile radius. (Please, sir, just let us put out the fire and I *promise* we will go away and leave you all alone.)

I still know of small, rural towns in Texas where a pregnant 13 year old is not at all strange. The local preacher would have likely wed her to the 40 year old father of her child. When she turns 18, they may or may not go into town and get a state-issued marriage license.

For you or I, this all sounds horrid. We pity the women, often subjugated and severely dominated by the men. We feel awful for the children, especially the girls, who never have a chance to *really* grow up. However, we must realize that for many of them, this is NORMAL to them.

And not all of them think of their wedding nights as traumatic. I have spoken with 16 year old girls, pregnant with their second child, who told me how very *proud* they were when they had wedded at 13, believing themselves to now be fully adult women, and that being a wife and mother meant they were now full members of their small, rural society.

I see there are many here who pity the women of this group, having been brought up to believe this is all right, natural and God's will that their daughters marry at menarche....while vilifying the men who must be sick and wrong to engage in such practices. I ask you to remember one thing:

The *BOYS* were ALSO brought up to believe that this is all right, natural and God's will. This sect has been going on since the 1930's...and has been teaching their doctrines to their children since that time. That means the 78 year old men in that church were taught, as babies and youngsters, the *same beliefs* that still hold today in that sect.

And such beliefs were taught even BEFORE that time...this particular church traces its origins to the late 1800's...but only broke away from the parent church in the 1930's to continue as fundamentalists. Therefore, the practices, traditions, beliefs and lifestyle of these people have been continuing, nearly unchanging, for *six generations*.

Brainwashing? Perhaps. Or perhaps these people are still living, nearly literally, in the 1880's, with their old-fashioned styles of dress, their old-fashioned styles of living and yes, even their old fashioned styles of not thinking it odd at all for a pubescent girl to be wed, knowing nothing of the relations between a man and a woman, to a man old enough to be her grandfather.

Do I think it terribly sad? Yes. Do I feel sorry for the children who have been torn from their mothers, for the mothers who have lost their children and for the men who have their families torn apart? Yes. Do I think that believing that following the modes, morals and beliefs of the 1880's is, at best, misguided and, at worst, abusive? Yes. This is not the 1800's...and the morals, beliefs and ideals of society have changed...and practices that were nothing more than a difference in religion a century ago are felonies now.

But this is not some young, upstart cult, like the Davidians....it is not even so young as the Jehovah's Witnesses. This particular church is approximately a century and a half old.

And that being the case, I do not believe that the men of it are perverted child rapers, or the women brainwashed idiots. They are simply following the religion that they were taught was the Way to Heaven when they were children...as taught to them by their parents and grandparents, who were taught the same by their parents. That such does not agree with our modern morality and beliefs as WE were taught is not their blame.

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Peace,
Caliann

"First, Show me in the Bible where it says you can save someone's soul by annoying the hell out of them." -- Chuck

So CalianneG, if I understand correctly, then you are basically saying that we should sympathize with the pedophile because his family has practiced child rape for years. A child that has been molested has a much larger chance of perpetuating the cycle than one that hasn't. The whole it happened to me so I'll do it to that kid theory. If they are members of a sect it is explainable, what about the little boy whose Father did it to him and on and on down the family tree? Are they explainable, too, because it has been perpetuated for so many generations? I understand that you agree that it isn't right. I'm not trying to start an argument, just trying to understand what you said and if you think it applies to the general child raping public. Kind of like the nudist camp in the area raising protests, but after people get used to it being there it's suddenly no big deal until people start having sex out in the yard and that is protested until people get used to it. Conditioning I guess.

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Nina's Grammy

WHERE in Texas??? I've lived all over Texas and never saw anything like what you have described.

Although where I live now they can be pretty hostile to strangers moving in, particularly non-whites. And people who weren't born here are still newcomers 30 years later, especially if they came from the city. And the farmers are totally non-progressive. They do it like their grandpa did because that's the only right way.

But even the way they are here is unique from every other part of Texas I've been around.

What you've described about 13 year old pregnant girls and shotgun weddings is alien to me.

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In Texas, girls can legallywed at 14 with parents consent.


Overall, I agree with Quint's comments.

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I wouldn't say polygamy was an historically accepted moral whatever "mere difference of religion" in the 1800's.

I'm still trying to figure out your point Caliann--you say it's not "right", but yet you argue somehow it's not so bad because it's "grandfathered"? By your arguement we should let cannibals keep on eating people and bless the folks that sell their children for a sex slave for food or chop off a girl's head for looking at a white man because that's what they're taught????

Caliann's post makes no sense to me either.

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If you would take some time to read about the FLDS, marrying underage girls off is a very recent addition to their "faith." Women were not married until 17 or 18 until Warren came into power after his father's death in 2002. Then he started lowering the age girls could be married. This is not a tradition dating back a century and a half.

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Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the heck out of your enemies. - Ferengi Rule of Aquisition #76

Don't blame me, I voted for Ron Paul.

Good on you, Madame for taking the time to read that book. I do believe as well that Warren Jeffs is the causal factor in perverting the FLDS belief system.

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Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the heck out of your enemies. - Ferengi Rule of Aquisition #76

Don't blame me, I voted for Ron Paul.

I think this hits the nail on the head. There is clearly statuatory rape occurring and if it is institutionalized policy of the sect, which it seems to be, there are a host of ways this might have been handled, without taking every single child away. Simply placing restraining orders and monitoring on the all the fathers, while allowing the children to remain in their homes with their mothers would have done far less to penalize the victims.

Sharon

I can't speak about its accuracy, but it makes sense to me. She's right, at least on one point - the reality is that very powerful cultural differences do exist, and where both male and female partner are raised in a culture, the experience doesn't look the same as it does in a place where there's a taboo.

We have a taboo against very young girls marrying older men - it is a powerful taboo. The assumption is that the girls must be and perceive themselves as victims, and that the men must be and experience themselves as pedophiles.

But there have been periods in the culture when young women marrying much older men was normal and acceptable, and in which neither partner experienced themselves as victims. My husband's grandmother was just 16 when she married her 32 year old husband (she was 15 when she met him) - a love match that lasted almost 65 years. Laura Ingalls was being courted by 10 years older Almanzo Wilder when she was just barely 15, to use an example most of us are familiar with. My own great-grandmother married her husband (not a love match, but from her own accounts entirely acceptable to her) at 15. On a related note (that age perceptions can vary by culture), her husband, my great-grandfather worked full time and supported his whole family (grandmother, parents dead, 4 siblings) by the time he was 12, and was accounted a man at 13 - and no, not a "today you are a man" bar mitzvah thing, but a *MAN* capable of supporting family and having full responsibility for their lives and well-being.

That doesn't mean that routinely marrying very young women to much older men can't be tremendously destructive for the girls. It doesn't mean it is ideal. But it does mean that it is possible that in this case, we aren't seeing clash of cultures more than absolute truths, nor does it mean that every one of the girls is a victim, or perceives herself as one. And just as it is tremendously destructive to be forced into marriage and sexual activity, it is also tremendously destructive to take children, including nursing babies away from their mothers (who, if they were victims are now having their victimhood compounded, and if they weren't, now feel like one), and to tell girls who experience their choices as normal, and may even like them, that they are being raped.

It is a lousy situation - but there's no question this could have been handled with greater subtlety - removing men from the homes, for example, as the claims were investigated, and doing in-depth interviews with the women to establish willing participation, while negotiating a deal to enforce a 16 year old age limit for marriage. Anything would have been better than this response.

Sharon

OMG How young CAN these kids marry here???

New Jersey

Applicants must both be at least 18 years old, with one exception.

* Applicants under 18 can marry if both parents consent to the marriage. The consent must be given under oath in front of two witnesses.


* Male: 16 or younger parties may marry with parental consent and/or permission of judge. Younger parties may obtain license in case of pregnancy or birth of child.


* Female: 16 or younger parties may marry with parental consent and/or permission of judge. Younger parties may obtain license in case of pregnancy or birth of child.

Well, the rest of the world is watching. We know that the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints are whackos, and there are certainly some abusers among them. We also see that Texas has elected to rip almost 500 children away from their mothers, and the mothers away from their families. We nod sagely and say "Uhuh! everything is bigger and better in Texas - particularly child abuse - although it takes the state to do a really big slap-up job."

Seriously - 500 kids, many of them breast-feeding. Talk to La Leche about that! The kids will survive, but talk about cruel and unusual punishment for the mothers! Many of them are supposed to have been pregnant before the age of 18! Well, duh! The age of consent in Texas used to be 14, so many of those were legal when it happened. Even If they weren't, the figures are no worse than for Chicago or New York (and probably not much worse than for Houston or Galveston), and there they get state support.

I expect there were a few people who were guilty of something or other in that settlement, but there are almost everywhere. The simple fact is that this was a fishing expedition to find someone guilty of something, and that the authorities trampled all over everyone's rights in an effort to find anything. Ripping almost 500 kids away from their mothers in an effort to possibly find 1 or 2 (all the charges they've brought so far) or even 10 or 20 people they can charge with spitting on the sidewalk, or even abusing underage girls, is just a tad excessive.

Texas will end up paying hundreds of millions of dollars through the courts for this idiocy, and so they should. It won't undo the damage to the families, and mothers will be pursuing their children through the courts for years - ultimately at state expense. And the emotional expense of the parents and children, of course. This idiotic approach will mean they can't even convict most of the few who were guilty, and the taxpayers will suffer.

Heck, they're still adjusting their count of kids they've ripped-off upwards every so often. At least their mothers knew where the children were. The authorities don't even know how many they stole - and this after around four weeks. Thank God I'm not in their care.

This is a simple human-rights case. There are issues that could have been and should have been addressed differently, but they won't be because this case will over-rule those issues. Therefore, anyone who was guilty will get off, and the new and greater guilt will be on the heads of the CPS and other official goons who trampled all over individual rights.

I think I understand what Calliann is saying: She isn't saying that she agrees: She is saying that when she considers their lifestyle and their beliefs and the limited and closed environment in which most of these people have lived.... that she can understand how many of them accept polygamy, assigned partnership, and young marriage as normal..... and for many of them it seems to work 'okay' as it is accepted, familiar, and comfortable for them. Notice please how often I mention the third pronouns 'they, them, their'. In a posting this does not mean 'windcatcher' nor does it mean 'Calliann'. It is referring to the FLDS.

I've a question: This group and similar groups of FLDS have been around practicing their beliefs since before 1930, this group going back to aprox. 1930. What about all the little women which were being married off early before now? Only recently did the laws of Texas change to prevent marriage at 14 yr. If a person is of legal age to marry, it is compliance with law for consent but has no protection or limits as to how old the person may or may not be to whom they consent. My offense with this sect is mostly that it circumvents the right of each person to consent or withhold their consent. No consent is rape in my book regardless of how 'legal' age may or may not be. Rape is illegal and no religious instruction can justify it. Age for consent has always been a variable defined by law under the power of culture. My grand parents and great grand parents lived in customary times where young girls did marry..... but were expected to keep their purity before marriage no matter how young or old they waited to get married. Regardless of legal requirements, consent usually required consent also from the father or custodial parent for daughters living in the home. In the times of 1800's and early 1900's, when the young at age 14 or 15 might be given in marriage....it was not so unusual for the suitor to be 10 years older, more or less: What was customary among 'genteel folk' of the time was that the husband to be, demonstrated to the acceptance of the parents, a stability in character and morality, in curteousy, and in providence and business to provide for his wife and family. Customs and times have changed.... and I'm not sure for the better.

We teach children as young as 6 and 8 about sexual organs, conception, and where babies come from: Formerly such instruction preceeded marriage or accompanied pubescence. Today classes are co-ed. Formerly, instruction was usually conducted by persons of the same gender and there was the preservation of modesty and even 'mystery' attached to novelty and special relationship of husband and wives. Now everyone talks about everything including menses and there is little kept from the curiosity of the very young: In fact....if you don't tell your children the facts of life...be assured he'll hear it from someone else.... and what he hears from another child might surprise many of us on this forum. We don't approve of 14 y/o's getting married, but, if one gets pregnant, she's allowed to get an abortion or choose to keep her child.

Clearly, these women, mother, were compliant in their adherance to the beliefs in which they were raised and did not or could not question the beliefs or the authorities of their sect which made marital decisions for their daughters and their sons. I cannot believe that their compliance was equal to being freely informed of their rights: I can't believe their submission was completely without coercion.

I think the children and their mothers should be rejoined and together as a mothers with children be guided with mental health counseling into thinking for themselves and establishing lives for themselves. The mothers did not sexually molest their children: they provided norishment, love, care, and guidance. The men are the abusers of both the women and the children. It's their butts which should be clamped in the vise of law and separated and prosecuted.

These mothers need help in deprogramming: I'm not Mormon, and, from my vantage point, consider them as a 'cult'..... but, in respect for the rights of others to chose their beliefs and religion, I think the reformed church of LDS aught to step up to the plate in offering the victims of this group some way to reconcile their beliefs apart from the expressions of their false practices, to recognize the difference and help them to develop resistance to being taken in by such practices in the future.

BTW, just what has our govenment been doing for all these years that they ignored the illegal practices of this group? Is it because the marriage license is the lawful way to get official permission and recognition of the establishment of a home.... but a 'common law' still exists whereby two people consent to establish a home without recording of a license..... and others just 'shack up' without commitment or license? And a man can marry and, especially if he's wealthy, have a girl friend or keep a mistress on the side? Immorality is no longer prosecuted except in cases of rape, incest, or enticement of a minor.

As an adult survivor of some pretty horrendous things, including sexual abuse, I am fully in favor of the death penalty for child molesters and child rapers. Do I need to state my position any clearer than that?

Now that that has been said, I will give you my reasons for stating what I have.

My grandmother was a huge part of my life when I was growing up. She was also quite old...she had my mother when she was 52. (Menopause runs late in my family...still, Mom was supposedly a tumor) My grandmother was born in 1898. When she was 14, she wedded my grandfather, a preacher. She had my aunt when she was 15.

When my grandmother got married, she didn't know ANYTHING about sex. That was simply not something people told their children about in 1912. She went to her marriage bed completely ignorant. Also, NO-ONE in her little farming community in rural Kansas thought there was anything wrong with her getting married. There was no hullabaloo in her community that she was too young, that her husband was after little girls, or anything like that...she was considered a woman grown. Both her and my grandfather would have been sickened by the idea of man having relations with a pre-pubescent child. *My grandmother, at 14, was NOT considered a child by her community at that age.*

Nowadays, as can be seen by the reactions of the people on this board, what my grandmother considered normal and right does, indeed, cause a fuhrer among those who were raised with modern values. My grandmother did not consider herself traumatized and raped on her wedding night, to her, that was the normal course of life and how it should be. Today, however, she would indeed be concerned and worried about the damage and trauma young people are doing to themselves by having sexual relations between themselves at the age of 16 without the benefits of marriage. (I can just hear her now)

The point of this whole thing that I have been trying to elaborate on is that the people of this religious group are trying to live by a doctrine and dogma that is over a century old and does NOT mesh with our modern precepts of morality and ethical behavior, nor our modern knowledge of psychology. In their minds, their teachings and their upbringing, they are living in my grandmother's small town in 1912; and to them, a girl who has achieved menarche is a woman grown...ready for the responsibilities and privileges of full adulthood.

I do not say that it is right. I also do not say that it is healthy. I am saying it is not worthy of blame and anger.

As for the modern child, well, studies in pedophilia since 1996 have shown that it is NOT a "vicious cycle". Survivors of sexual molestation do not tend to grow up to molest others....and most pedophiles were not, themselves, molested as children.

"The cause or causes of pedophilia are not known. The experience of sexual abuse as a child was previously thought to be a strong risk factor, but research does not show a causal relationship, as the vast majority of sexually abused children do not grow up to be adult offenders, nor do the majority of adult offenders report childhood sexual abuse. The US Government Accountability Office concluded, "the existence of a cycle of sexual abuse was not established."
While not causes of pedophilia itself, comorbid psychiatric illness--such as personality disorders and substance abuse--are risk factors for acting on pedophilic urges. "

I might also add that pedophilia is a sexual desire for PRE-pubescent and PERI-pubescent children....not those who have achieved biological maturity. Sexual attraction for adolescents is considered to be Ephebophilia or Hebephilia.

"Attraction to adolescents is not generally regarded by psychologists as pathological except when it interferes with other relationships, becomes an obsession which adversely affects other areas of life, or causes distress to the subject.

Sexual desire that includes adolescents, as well as older individuals, is common among adults of all sexual orientations; this is not labeled "ephebophilia" because the attraction to adolescents is not exclusive. In some cultures, such as those in which adolescent girls are routinely married to older men, it is considered normal for adults to include adolescents among their sexual interests."

Now, before I need to don the ever-present, flame-retardant underwear, allow me to state that as someone who was brought up in *modern* Western society, I do NOT consider 13 and 14 year old adolescents to be proper subjects of attraction. I do, however, realize that my feelings on this have to do with my own upbringing and the culture in which I was brought up, and does not stem from any biological source. If I had been brought up a century ago, OR in non-modernized areas in many parts of the world, I might be wondering why everyone is so wrought about this.

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Peace,
Caliann

"First, Show me in the Bible where it says you can save someone's soul by annoying the hell out of them." -- Chuck

Caliann,the big difference between your Grandma & the FLDS girls is that they are FORCED to marry,usually men they've never met,much older,relatives,etc., they have no say in when/who they marry.I am assuming here of course,that wasn't the case w/ your Grandma.

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Please take the time to watch this video about Cerebral Palsy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0mrs4fpRv8

No, that is not my argument whatsoever. No matter what Leviticus says, I am not selling off my children. No matter how much they sometimes tempt me. *smiles*

I am saying look at the issue logically, and attempt understanding of it before getting heated up or judging it. I am certainly not saying that we should take things to their illogical extreme and hang car thieves in the same way we hung horse thieves not long ago. Although I have been tempted to do that too.

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Peace,
Caliann

"First, Show me in the Bible where it says you can save someone's soul by annoying the hell out of them." -- Chuck