Posted on 12/28/2005 7:39:44 AM PST by tkathy
Sect's 'Lost Boys' struggle to find a place
An Arizona-based polygamist sect has expelled more than 400 teen boys to leave more brides for older men
BY JAIMEE ROSE
Arizona Republic On an icy evening before Christmas, two teenage boys pulled their Christmas tree from its slick new box and stared in wonder.
They fluffed the branches and puzzled over ornament placement — how exactly does this work? Are you supposed to follow a pattern or just stick them on? They knew they wanted piles of lights, and the boys laughed as they chased each other around the tree, spiraling light onto the dark branches.
"This is, like, my first real, actual Christmas," says Johnny Jessop. He is 16 years old.
Jessop grew up in Colorado City, Ariz., in a polygamous home with 39 moms and more than 300 brothers and sisters, but no Christmas. The holiday is not observed in his religion-ruled town, where the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has orphaned more than 400 teenagers like Jessop in order to leave young women for marriage to the older men. The men believe they need three wives to get to heaven.
Shunned by their families and forbidden to return home, the "Lost Boys," as they are known, are left to fumble darkly through a world they can't comprehend. With no money and often only eighth-grade educations, many end up homeless or in jail. But a lucky few have found their way to a Salt Lake City support network of mentors who are sending them to school, finding them jobs, giving them homes and asking these boys, for the first time, what they'd like for Christmas.
In the apartment shared by five of the Lost Boys, since the day they put the tree up, the Christmas tree lights have never been turned off.
The tree "fills up space, fills a hole," Jessop says.
The first time Jessop saw Christmas lights, they were on TV.
When you first leave Colorado City, they say, you sit on borrowed sofas in small towns across southern Utah, in the home of whoever has let you in, and stare at the TV screen, uploading American culture.
In the twin communities of Colorado City and Hildale, Utah, TV is banned by FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs, who is in hiding and wanted by the FBI. He was indicted on sexual misconduct charges for arranging the marriages of underage girls. He is also being sued by a group of the Lost Boys, who say he forced them out to reduce competition for wives.
Also against the rules in Colorado City: kissing girls, having a dog, swimming, listening to secular music, celebrating worldly holidays, wearing short-sleeve shirts, talking to people outside their faith and being outside after dark.
The boys go to work in construction at age 8, handing their paychecks over to their fathers. By age 14, they're operating heavy machinery. Education is administered through a religious sieve: no history classes and no biology instruction; and for most, schooling ends after the eighth grade. The only book they read is the Book of Mormon, although the FLDS and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are not associated; the FLDS split from the mainstream Mormon church more than a century ago over the practice of polygamy.
The sooner mainstream society accepts polygamy as a lifestyle choice made by consenting adults, the sooner stories like this will cease to be newsworthy. What happens in the bedroom is nobody's business but the half-dozen or so consenting adults who are in there.
Yeah, and you can see why they've(the arabs) invented the suicide bomber thing... got to do something with all those young guys who are never going to get anything as long as the elders have something to say about it.
Exactly. Gotta keep the brideless young men focused on external enemies, and find a way to kill them off, before they start thinking about all of the young ladies being taken up to the palaces and mansions.
Hmm
There are a lot of cutsey jokes about polygamy, and it is being winked at by the elites, but polygamy is a barbaric practice that must have no place in the 21st century.
Males as well as females suffer from this exploitation.
I don't consider a brain washed 12 year old female forced into an arranged marriage a 'consenting adult'.
Which is why they tell them they will get 72 virgins.
Sometimes it just goes without saying :-)
I suspect that the LDS still favors polygamy as well. I would guess that if some future Supreme Court ever ruled that monogamy-only marriage was unconstitutional, the President of the LDS would receive a miraculous message the next day that polygamy was recommended LDS behavior again.
I agree,
Whatever two ADULTS (heck mammals) consentually do with, to and for each other is no business of mine or the government's.
However,
Bring into the picture underage females for horny old geezers to marry and I'll stomp someone's head into ground. With a smile on my face.
Thanks for the correction - I actually knew that once and forgot it. I swear.
Shouldn't RICO be applicable to these groups? It's pretty obvious that they are engaging in organized conspiracies to commit crimes in more than one state.
I just added it as a keyword.
I think legalizing polygamy would make some of the earlier writings of the LDS leaders a little more palatable. Those were different times though.
The LDS Church still believes in polygamy in the AFTERLIFE, which is obviously not what's going on in these cult groups.
RICO - sounds applicable to me.
And if suddenly polygamy becomes legal in the US will they not go back to it? That was my understanding. Watch out all you color country maidens!
Mr. Fisher sounds like a gift from God for these boys.
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