And, here I thought my tri-fecta of fuckedupness took the cake…
I’m not a Mormon nor do I claim to even know 10% of that religion. All I’ve ever heard is they have their sealed marriage ceremonies, their secret handshakes and passwords. Sealed together for all time and eternity. Sounds bizarre to me. The closest I ever got to reading The Book of Mormon was when my crazy friend, Letty, “stole” the Book of Mormon from our Vail hotel room and stuck it in my suitcase. Found it unpacking when I got back to Dallas. Bitch. I’ll get her back.
Nonetheless.
I looked up the definition of “fundamental”. “Forming a necessary base or core. Of central importance.” As in, “the protection of fundamental human rights”. I’m going out on a limb here and am going to say that keeping your penis away from children is one “fundamental” way to protect your children.
Who am I talking about? Warren Jeffs. Their prophet. (to a mere 10,000 followers). Whose prophet? The people who believe in polygamy. What the hell is a prophet anyways? Apparently someone selling a load of goods and people actually buying it. The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Also known as FDLS. The “F” word in this acronym stands for Fundamental(ist). I get in more trouble using the “F” word.
78 Wives. 60 children. Several of whom have come forward telling their stories of their father molesting them when they were children. BOTH boys and girls. It wasn’t enough that he had 78 wives and many of whom were only 14 years old. He had to prey on his own children. One of his sons was quoted as saying, “my father said, ‘what I’m about to do to you, don’t do to anyone else.'” It’s admitting that he knew what he was doing was wrong. But did it anyway.
Another fucked up whack job hiding behind his religion. Whose name starts out with “Fundamental.” Are the people zombies? Did he hypnotize them? He is STILL their prophet. Behind bars. A convicted pedophile. Sharing his word of God to 10,000 people. Am I missing something here?
Ok. So, let’s start with the reason this sect came to be. Mormons denounced polygamy over a 100 years ago. The FDLS still believed in it. So they broke away. Fine. Kind of like the protestants breaking away from the Catholics. (Or was it the Church of England?) They believe in most of it. They just have their own little tweaks so they’re going to do it their way. I get it. But polygamy isn’t exactly a little tweak. It’s a pretty strong sticking point.
Part of me gets polygamy. Did you ever see “Big Love”? Kind of addicting. They made polygamy look everyday normal in the burbs. Best part was they each got their own home. They had their beds to themselves a few days a week. (Being a single woman, I like my alone time. Especially when I go to sleep at night.) And they shared in the house work and kid work. I can definitely see the perks.
But, why is it always one man with several women? My guess is women are too smart to deal with more than one man. Men have way too many issues. Why the hell would you want to deal with more than one? Not me.
Back to their prophet. These people put all their faith in him. They still do. He failed them over and over again and, yet, they still believe.
Is one’s religion more important than the fundamental rights of its children? Shouldn’t they put their children first? Keeping him the prophet tells their children that he is more important than they are. Just like my mother. Her weakness (I mean religious faith) in her husband was more important than my fundamental rights as a child. As a human being.
Photo Credit by Jerry Proudlock