For those who are following the raid on the FLDS compound in Texas, cult expert Rick Ross has a section of articles going back a decade on the various Mormon polygamist splinter groups.
Legally, there should be a lot of charges to go around, including welfare fraud, the abandonment of teen boys, and of course the practice of marrying off little girls.
At the 45 minute mark of the "Mind Games" episode of the radio program "This American Life" is an interesting segment on Elizabeth Smart called "Invisible Girl." In it the author questions why with her picture plastered everywhere in the Salt Lake City environs, no one there recognized her. He speaks with many people who saw the trio of Emmanuel, the woman, and the girl, including the author's own son who had gone to school with Elizabeth. He got an answer he wouldn't have got in any other state.
Also, the Arizona Republic followed the story of two girls who had fled the Colorado City community and how they attempted to adjust to the outside world.
(You listen to NPR, too? I'm IMPRESSED!!!)
I see no difference between their prairie dresses and a f*ckin' burqua. Get a group of neanderthals togethr and voila ~ repressive, misogynist a$$holes, the lot of them.
Has Hillary or any of my brave feminist sisters on the left spoken out about this? I musta missed it if they did...
Posted by: panhandle cooter at April 11, 2008 10:52 PMI really enjoyed the NPR segment. Emmanuel was a fixture in that area. They knew him to be a homeless nut case and all thought the young girl with him was his new plural wife. None of that rated a call to the cops.
Posted by: Donnah at April 11, 2008 11:15 PMYeah.. I guess once we get rid of the LDS ingrates, we can start on the Amish..or at least the Jehovah's Witnesses..but it's a start.
Posted by: csason at April 13, 2008 08:49 PMPolygimist Tom Green flaunted his five wives and twenty-nine children on national TV, and was later charged, among other things, with welfare fraud.
I so loved it.
He didn't even have the rightousness to support the family and life style he was crowing so loudly about.
"see no difference between their prairie dresses and a f*ckin' burqua. Get a group of neanderthals togethr and voila ~ repressive, misogynist a$$holes, the lot of them."
Well, yes - I am sure that if one of the women were to wear a slightly shorter dress without sleeves, the men and the rest of the women would gather around her and stone her to death.
Good grief.
If you really can't see the difference, you really can't see.
Posted by: OriginalFrank at April 15, 2008 08:20 PMFrank ~ stoning gets you jail time here, remember? But imposed isolation, ignorance and sack-like uniforms gets you the girl every time. Maybe even three or four. If they don't KNOW any better or don't KNOW there's a choice ~ especially if you breed your own ~ and if you break them in at 12 years old or so, well dang! You've got yourself a chattel (and an empowered male hierarchy) regardless of WHAT tongues she speaks in.
Or don't YOU see?
Guess not.
Posted by: panhandle cooter at April 15, 2008 11:13 PMYou are right, Cooter, I really don't see.
Speaking of the adult women: people left the group freely (some after shunning, of course); that option remained open to the others. You may not feel they had all the freely-chosen options that you - or non-prairie-dressed Americans - do. Sure, they have a somewhat higher burden of effort to leave, given their birth or conversion effects, but they still have/had the choice.
As you shrewly recognize, unlike their burkha-clad counterparts, they are not generally executed for attempting to leave the fold.
So, no, I don't get it from your perspective. To me, there is a vast difference between being killed for leaving, and being psychologically-impeded from doing so (which is how I interpret your presentation of their situations).
Posted by: OriginalFrank at April 17, 2008 04:30 PM