Posted on 04/29/2008 4:42:30 PM PDT by Zakeet
Airs April 29 at 10:00 PM ET on WE Television Network
In the past year, Polygamy has been a hot button issue all over America. From the trial and conviction of the infamous Polygamist leader and member of the FBI’s Most Wanted List Warren Jeffs, to Mormon Mitt Romney’s run for the Presidency, there has been no shortage of news about the subject.
In this episode of Secret Lives of Women, we profile 3 women, all of whom have different stories to tell about their involvement with Polygamy.
Flora escaped from the infamous Polygamous cult known as the FLDS (Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints) run until recently by Warren Jeffs. She now helps women and children living in Polygamy find safe passage out of it when they decide to leave, or worse, are kicked out by its leadership.
Michelle runs a safe house for Polygamy’s forgotten young men, known as the ‘Lost Boys’. Kicked out of their homes for things like watching movies or talking to girls, these boys are literally left on the streets to fend for themselves. Michelle helps them get back on their feet to attend school, get jobs and carve out a life for themselves.
Carolyn escaped from the FLDS three years ago and has recently written a bestselling book called Escape. In a house with 4 other wives, she was a virtual slave to her husband and his first wife who terrorized everyone in their home. With 8 kids, one of whom is severely disabled, Carolyn saw an opening to save her family and one night escaped from the community with her children. After some tense moments of being on the run and despite her own objections, having her oldest daughter return to the FLDS, Carolyn is trying to find her footing along with help from caring individuals who are working together to help her and her kids find a life for themselves.
Watching “Secret Lives of Women” now. Can’t believe this can happen in USA. Shameful. These women Flora, Carolyn and Michelle are very brave women. Will be saying prayers for their safety.
Watched the program...these Mormons are real sickos....and perverts.
I will be praying for their safety too & for the innocent children victims of the FLDS.
“Watched the program...these Mormons are real sickos....and perverts.”
I take it you mean the FLDS are “real sickos....and perverts.”
The mainstream LDS is not the issue, so the broad brush term “these Mormons” could be misunderstood.
The institution of FLDS should be stomped on so hard it cannot continue. And any of the men who bedded an underage girl should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the laws, in Texas, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, South Dakota and British Columbia.
Further, I hold adult females accountable, because they have broken the law, to the extent they enabled the bedding of the girls. I don’t know what laws they broke, so they may skate free.
Plus many will sympathize along the lines they were innocent victims of the sick institution and its men. My feelings are mixed. They should be accountable, but perhaps not punished under the law.
The Federal Government should get involved now. I never thought I would think that, but with all the state and country jumping and intimidation it seems the only way to end it.
Women and children who want out are being denied their basic rights as citizens of the United States. Two questions for anyone else that saw it.
1) What was Flora Jessop implying about the babies?
I know she was pointing out the numbers, but did anyone get what she thought might be happening?
2) Re: The furnace/crematorium. Did they say one of the lost boys was working on it and got kicked out for asking, or was someone else working on it, and he asked questions.
“The Mormon polygamy in that era wasn’t forced, nor did it involve younger girls than were routinely entering into monogamous marriages. The problem with the FLDS isn’t polygamy, it’s rape of minors; rape, beating and imprisonment of adults and children; and discarding adolescent boys who know they’ll be beaten and re-discarded if they try to get back to their families.”
Here is a real example of polygamy during frontier Mormon Utah days. It is the story of Dr. Priddy Meeks, who was in the 2nd crossing of the prarrie to Utah in 1847. He was a fairly well known figure in history, both of Mormons and of frontier medicine.
His published journal tells of life during the times.
He was born in 1795 and married Mary Jane in 1815, who bore four children before her death in 1824.
He married his second wife Sarah in 1826, who bore six more children. She lived from 1801 until 1900. They probably became Mormon converts together, in the 1840s, as they were initially in Indiana, then moved to Illinois and Utah.
In 1856 he entered a polygamous marriage in Utah to another wife Mary Jane, who bore ten more children. She was a 17 year old from Ireland, at the time of this Utah Mormon polygamous marriage. She lived from 1839 until 1933.
Priddy Meeks died in 1886. Records indicate the last child was born when he was 81. It is doubtful he scammed the state to support any of his children, but no doubt the church may have helped with the young ones in the later years; or likely also other family members and neighbors.
He was my 4xG Uncle. In my own line there was no polygamy of record.
I think this fairly accurately depicts the extent of polygamy for most frontier era Mormons. The big wigs had many wives, to go with their power and status. Some others had some polygamy, while many had none.
I have never been a Mormon, because my mother would only marry my father if he left that faith which he fully did do. He simply taught us to respect his relatives, some of whom were Mormons. Out of respect for him and them, I have tried to do as he wished.
Having said all that, I hold that the FLDS’s individuals should be prosecuted for the laws they violated. Hopefully that will be sufficient to end the illegal statutory rape of underage girls, and the illegal polygamous marriages too.
Cutting that out of their sect, let them believe, do and live however they like. If it is legal.
Off main topic footnotes which may interest some: (Insofar as records indicate he fathered his last and 20th child at age 80, cayenne may have medical benefits not yet claimed)
google “cayenne pepper meeks”
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=cayenne+pepper+meeks&btnG=Google+Search
google “frontier medicine priddy meeks”
google “cayenne pepper impotence”
Journal of Priddy Meeks
Sure it was. (It just wasn't always person-specific like it's been in the fLDS for almost 60 years). It was at least spiritually coerced in that between 1852 and 1890, Mormons were taught that the highest level of reaching the celestial kingdom depended upon their entering into polygamy.
I say 1852 because that's when the written version of D&C 132 was widely circulated...but even for a number of years before that, it was "impressed" upon Mormon leaders to enter into polygamy...and at least 70 LDS general authorities and even more bishops did so. In fact, LDS "prophet" John Taylor in the 1880s told his monogamous bishops to resign if they were not going to enter into polygamy. And the fLDS trace their spiritual lineage back to Taylor.
There are literally hundreds of references of the Mormon leaders from the 1850s thru the 1880s--starting with D&C 132:4,21,27,32,37--where polygamy is commanded by the Mormon god thru Smith & that damnation awaited those who failed to follow through.
The problem with the FLDS isn't polygamy, it's rape of minors; rape, beating and imprisonment of adults and children; and discarding adolescent boys who know they'll be beaten and re-discarded if they try to get back to their families.
Except for the middle phrase above (beating, imprisonment), there was less than full scale versions of these in 19th century Mormonism as well...much older men drooling after 14 to 16 yo girls and spiritually coercing them to marry them [whatever folks say about girls entering into marriage early in the 19th century, the overall stats do not bear this out and even when it occurred, it was usually aligned with a boy/man not significantly older than the girl]...a 24 yo engaged young man named Lewis was castrated in the 1850s on the order of the bishop who was interested in taking his fiance...the man refused to go on the mission that would have conveniently gotten him out of the way...there were fewer females in Utah than males, & instead of dumping "lost boys" on other communities, LDS leaders would usually send young men on missions to help dilute the competition. And then these missionaries were warned by LDS apostles like Heber C. Kimball, who wound up with 40 wives, not to monopolize the female converts coming to Utah.
The splinter sects isn't where most of the polygamy occurred post-manifesto--at least not right away. The RLDS didn't practice it. And if you knew the right leadership contacts, a mainstream Mormon could get a plural marriage approved on a case-by-case basis between 1890 and 1910. B. Carmon Hardy has documented over 260 of these new post 1890 start-up relationships.
Increasingly, though, by 1909 and 1910, the LDS church started to ex-communicate those who had entered into a post 1890 polygamous arrangement. (Several years before that, the LDS church had been pressured to ex-communicate two such apostles).
The big splinter came around 1935 when LDS "prophet" Grant, even though he had 3 wives himself, started going after cracking down on new polygamous arrangements with a reformation previously unseen. So it really took over a century for mainstream Mormonism to rooting out polygamy in earnest -- and not just practice its duplicious wink-wink, nod-nod 1890s and early 1900s. [Remember, not just anybody could solemnize a plural wedding post-Manifesto...it had to be duly authorized LDS leaders--some of whom were "rewarded" by becoming LDS apostles]
Not so. The 24/7 coverage is typical mainstream media "conflict" coverage.
Cooper Anderson did a major prime-time CNN series just prior to moving on from CNN...And Warren Jeffs & Tom Green were in the news big time. Oh, and "more conservative than some others" is a waste of type time. It doesn't say anything.
Yep, Texas is NOT Utah or Arizona.
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