truth dancer wrote:Did anyone catch CNN last night?
When they reported on the hearings for the FLDS, the attorney for the group claimed the government is trying to take away the Book of Mormon and the doctrine in it.
First, of course the doctrine is not in the Book of Mormon but in the D&C, nevertheless, it was startling to hear, given how hard the LDS church is trying to distance themselves from any relationship to the FLDS.
I do think it won't be long before the news finds out that the LDS does indeed have polygamy right in their scriptures, or that some men in the LDS church are indeed actually spiritually married to multiple women, or that the LDS church does indeed BELIEVE in polygamy.
~dancer~
Hi Truth Dancer,
I saw the show last night and was also startled to hear the Book of Mormon mentioned, along with the persecution in Nauvoo.
Did you watch CNN with Anderson Cooper last night? First he had on some FLDS members giving their usual rehearsed statements but after that he had on a very impressive former FLDS member I hadn't seen before. She was very calm and articulate. Here is the transcript:
COOPER: Well, the raid last month on Warren Jeffs' Texas ranch wasn't the first time a state has targeted the polygamist sect. Back in 1953, Arizona state police and the U.S. National Guard raided an FLDS colony at Short Creek, now known as Colorado City. More than 236 kids were taken into custody, and many of them were never returned to their families.
During that raid, Mary Mackert, our next guest, was then a child. She wasn't removed from the sect, but decades later she left on her own. It's an ordeal she describes in her book "The Sixth of Seven Wives: Escape from Modern-Day Polygamy." She joins me now.
Mary, as you hear these representatives of the FLDS, and as you hear the polygamists themselves talking about that there's no abuse going on, what do you think? What do you think is really going on?
MARY MACKERT, FORMER FLDS MEMBER: Well, when I was a child, we were taught to lie to the gentiles. That we, any wife who...
COOPER: Who are the gentiles? You mean anyone not of the FLDS?
MACKERT: Anyone outside of the religious -- yes, anyone outside of our religious circle was a gentile. They were wicked, and they were evil. And we were to lie to them to protect the prophets. We rehearsed the lies. We lied to keep Daddy from going to jail. And there are lies on my birth certificate...
COOPER: They would actually rehearse the lies with -- with kids?
MACKERT: Oh, yes, yes. I was told to tell the neighbors, when they wondered why my dad wasn't home every night, that he was a traveling salesman. And my dad is actually an accountant.
COOPER: Today's ruling, though, basically says, look, that the FLDS belief system, in and of itself, doesn't constitute abuse. Even though they may support the notion that minor girls can get married, can have babies, they say just because they have that belief, that doesn't equal abuse.
From your experience, is abuse widespread?
MACKERT: Oh, yes. I was molested as a child, and I married a man that was 50 years old when I was 17 in an arranged marriage to get to heaven. I prostituted myself to get to heaven.
COOPER: It was interesting, when Larry King was interviewing some women who are currently in the FLDS sect and asked them, "Why do you -- you know, why do you believe in polygamist marriages?"
They say, "Well, there's not enough good men around."
But it seems like there's plenty of men in these compounds. In fact, the younger men are sometimes kicked out. And there's this whole group they call the Lost Boys who are former members of the FLDS Church who have been kicked out for one reason or the other so that older men can marry these younger women.
MACKERT: And that's true. That's true. My youngest brother was told that he'd have to go find him a wife out in the world and convert her and bring her back, because there weren't enough women to go around.
COOPER: You compared women in FLDS with women living under the Taliban. What -- what was life like?
MACKERT: You are taught to blindly obey, to never question authority. And if your priest of authority tells you to do something that's wrong, God will hold him accountable and not you.
And you -- you grow up not knowing how to make decisions or how to be responsible about the decisions you make.
COOPER: Mary Mackert, I appreciate your perspective tonight. Thanks for being with us.
MACKERT: You're welcome.
The song "Follow the Prophet" keeps popping into my head each time I watch these FLDS specials.
LDS won't be able to ignore the similarities in both religions the more exposure this gets.