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	Jeffs Trial Unveils Cult's Criminal Side By Elizabeth Hovde The Colombian September 27, 2007 http://www.columbian.com/opinion/news/2007/09/09272007news204376.cfm No one should be allowed to coerce young girls into marriages and get away with it. So hurray for the jury that just convicted Warren Jeffs. He was found guilty of being an accomplice to rape for performing a wedding between a 19-year-old man and a 14-year-old girl. The girl, now a 21-year-old woman, says she was forced to marry and that marriage set the stage for sex; sex she did not want to have. As Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said of Jeffs' conviction, "Everyone should now know that no one is above the law, religion is not an excuse for abuse and every victim has a right to be heard." Will the young people living in the Arizona-Utah border towns that follow Jeffs' lunatic teachings get the message? Who will take it to them? Jeffs, who fancies himself a holy prophet (unless it might save his keister in court), is infamous for his so-called leadership of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a rogue group that the traditional Mormon Church does not endorse or claim. These fundamentalists, unlike mainstream Mormons, practice polygamy - and, if this case is any indication, the coercion of minors. Former FLDS members say Jeffs is a strict ruler, demanding submission from women and obedience from all followers. He is the town matchmaker, arranging marriages, dissolving others and reassigning spouses as he sees fit. Gaggles of kids are born into plural-marriage homes. Teen boys reportedly have been sent away from their families so the one-man-to-many-women equation can be preserved. Maybe Jeffs should just stop hogging all the women. He is a serial marrier. He reportedly has more than 70 wives and is even his own stepfather many times over - the result of marrying his dad's widows. Dozens of them. The FLDS church has partitioned itself off from the rest of the world in the towns of Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah. Jeffs and other leaders controlled most of the homes and properties there until 2005, when a judge intervened because of allegations of mismanagement. If you know about Jeffs, you know that he should be jailed for numerous reasons. Polygamy is reprehensible to many people, including me - mostly because of the fatherless environment it creates for children. But it shouldn't be a crime. It is a form of family that individuals in a free society should be able to choose. People who shouldn't get married do all the time. The trouble with Jeffs is that his polygamy involves coercing children. The claim that young women agree to these marriages is ludicrous. Minors are not capable of such consent. In addition to pedophilia and rape, tax evasion and welfare fraud are fertile ground for pursuing Jeffs. It's amazing how his cult of sorts condemns government and says it wants nothing to do with it, yet has no problem collecting oodles of dollars in welfare money for the numerous children produced in the church's illegal plural marriages. As Jon Krakauer writes in his enlightening and disturbing 2003 book about Fundamentalist Mormons, "Polygamy is illegal in both Utah and Arizona. To avoid prosecution, typically men in Colorado City will legally marry only the first of their wives. ? This has the added benefit of allowing the enormous families in town to qualify for welfare and other forms of public assistance. ? (The) polygamous community receives more than $6 million a year in public funds." That includes public schooling and basic safety services benefiting the FLDS community. Krakauer adds, "In 2002, seventy-eight percent of the town's residents living on the Arizona side of the state received food stamps. Currently the residents of Colorado City receive eight dollars in government services for every dollar they pay in taxes; by comparison, residents in the rest of Mohave County, Arizona, receive just over a dollar in services per tax dollar paid." The church's leaders justify all this assistance from the "evil" government by saying it's a windfall from the Lord - an innovative way of caring for his sheep, so to speak. Blech. This trial has put Warren Jeffs' cult in the spotlight. Let's hope the spotlight doesn't get put away with Jeffs. There are plenty of 14-year-old girls and 19-year-old boys still suffering in a backward faith-based community that uses religion to enslave its women and abuse its children. Contact: ehovde@earthlink.net
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