Leave Nancy, Marie, and Esther ALONE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
I keep seeing sooo many blogs ridiculing that clip of the women from the LDS-breakoff compound in Texas. They’re robots, they’re brainwashed, they’re as interesting as oatmeal, they’re frumpy, they’re ugly, they’re dressed like Laura Ingalls, they sound coached . . . it just goes on. Many people are demonizing these women, but most are simply laughing their asses off at them.
Well, I’m not. I can’t see anything the least bit comical in that interview. What I see, instead, are three women who have been raised to be gentle, soft-spoken, modest, and kind, thrust into the glare of the public spotlight days after their children were taken from them at gunpoint and the safe insular world that’s all they’ve ever known was torn apart. I see three women standing up to that pressure with incredible grace and strength, doing everything in their power, from breaking their culture’s rules of personal modesty to parroting lawyer-penned lines, to show the world that they’re not child-raping freaks so that they can just get their babies back. I see a fucking TRAGEDY here, and my heart goes out to them.
I do not agree with the practices of the Poly-Mormons. Hell, I just don’t like Mormonism. I also am not a fan of child-rape. But that isn’t what happened there, and nobody seems to understand that.
Picture the scene. You’re a girl, you’re fifteen, you’ve been getting visits from the cardinal for a couple of years now. You live in a culture where there is no independent role for women outside the home. Your parents come to you and say they’ve found a man they’d like you to marry, an older man who is stable and can provide for you and your children and who will treat you kindly. They never say the words, “you have to”, but they’re implied—after all, you’ve been raised to obedience.
You’re not at a Mormon compound in Texas—you’re a free-born American farmgirl born in the year 1835. Or an English noblewoman born in 1532, or a Russian peasant born in 1746. Basically, you’re any girl born anywhere in the world before the twentieth century.
In our modern culture we seem to equate “marriage to underaged girls” with “brutal rape of babies.” Not so. These “children” were probably quite a bit less traumatized by their wedding night than I was by losing my virginity against my will at roughly the same age. Hell, they’re less traumatized than their male counterparts, countless of whom are exiled and abandoned because with the old men marrying multiple young girls, they have no prospects of a wife and family and therefore no place in their culture. But that’s another beef, for another time.
I’m not trying to defend the practices of these “cults”, although I could, to an extent. I’m defending Nancy, Esther, and Marie from the demonization that is being heaped upon their bowed heads. These women were not knowingly commending their daughters into the hands of slavering, abusive child-rapists. They were marrying them off to provider-husbands, as their culture believed. They’re not Koreshians sending their ten-year-old daughters off to a “spiritual marriage” with a slimy cult leader, they’re simply doing what their mothers did, what their grandmothers did, what YOUR great-great-grandmother probably did. They are living the life to which they were born in the best manner possible, and now that life has been torn out from under them. Imagine what you’d feel like if suddenly THEY were the majority, and came storming into your home and confiscated your children because you’d been a horribly abusive monster for letting your 17-year-old daughter dress like a hooker. Myself, I’d be a pissed-off, fire-spitting, enraged dragon-lady. I would not have the strength to sit in front of a camera and quietly, gently, and smilingly defend my way of life. I’d make an ass out of myself, and where would that get me?
Again, I’m not saying that I believe the way these people live is “right”. I’m also not saying it’s “wrong”. It’s most certainly different, but not so much so in a historical context. I’m just saying that no matter the findings of abuse that may or may not come out of the investigation, there is no call to humiliate these women further with public ridicule. They have suffered more in the past few weeks than you or I, G-d willing, will ever suffer in our entire lifetimes. They are terrified, they are lost, and they are despairing. And yet they still have the strength to go on a television program where they knew they were going to be torn apart for their beliefs, and answer questions calmly, gently, and smilingly. They have comported themselves with more grace than I could ever hope to. That’s not “brainwashing”, folks, that’s fucking CLASS. I admire these women for that. And that’s all I’m going to say on the subject.
Lawrence.com blogs are collections of short, frequently updated posts by members of the Lawrence community. Blog writers, and comment posters, are solely responsible for what they say. (Please take the time to read our full policy.)
If you're interested in writing a blog on lawrence.com, send us a couple of sample entries.
Lymbyc Systym / This Will Destroy You / Black Christmas :: Though generally lumped in with the electronica scene, this duo's appeal extends far beyond bloopy sequencing as laptop post-rock generators ... More info
Comments
lawrence.com does not necessarily agree with comments posted below - responsibility lies with the relevant user alone. Read our full policy
Posted by Dazie (Aileen Dingus) on April 23, 2008 at 9:45 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Hear hear. I couldn't have said it better.
Posted by beatle919 (Marcy McGuffie) on April 23, 2008 at 10:07 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Well written as usual, Misty. You definitely think outside of the mainstream public opinion (that's a compliment, btw) and I can't argue any of your points. I certainly appreciate you writing this - it gave me something to think about...and that's never a bad thing!
Posted by mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) on April 23, 2008 at 10:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Thank you. Upon first hearing of the raid, I was all like, "Good, shut those freaks down." I guess it's having bred, and that inconvenient "empathy" shit, that made my heart ache watching that video. Regardless of my (very complicated) opinions on the actual "compound" and what happened there, we got shown a big, fat, slice of hurting, and this is one (rare) instance in which I can't mock that.
Posted by DOTDOT (anonymous) on April 23, 2008 at 11:53 p.m. (Suggest removal)
There's a cold wind blowing is all I can say. Well, no, I can say this too: we are all slaves to a cult in one way or another. This is a dramatic clash between government and an unconventional culture. There are generations of people raising their kids to deal drugs and spend their lives behind bars. Their are generations of people who raise their kids to prep themselves as parasites to the rest of us. Insurance. "Health care." Law. Banking. "Higher" education. Software development. Politics. Nation building.
There is no reason to believe there isn't child abuse among the FLDS population just as is there is no reason to believe there isn't child abuse under any other population. I agree with the class that most of the FLDS women have displayed in light of having their children taken away.
What I don't get is where are the men? Jesus Christ, if you (try to) take my kids away, I would be a statistic. To leave these ladies and children to fend for themselves in the face of all this public ridicule is a castration offense.
That's all I'm going to say.
Posted by clayhill70 (anonymous) on April 24, 2008 at 12:33 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I'm sure your feelings of empathy are genuine, being a mother and all, but this is 2008 not 1908 or 1808 and sometimes we have to protect the rights of children even if it goes against the will of loving parents and their beliefs. At least the FBI and/or ATF didn't have to storm the compound and slaughter half of the residents including children to secure those rights.
Marrying my son off to someone....say the age of Demi Moore to secure his and maybe my financial future would be wrong, right........right?
Posted by OnShakedown (Chris Tackett) on April 24, 2008 at 12:43 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Misty, agree w/ almost everything you've said. They are showing class by going out into the spotlight, which for them is a bigger deal than your or i doing so since (i imagine) we're more desensitized to the media. And as mothers, they should be commended for doing what they can to be reunited w/ their kids
though, all that being said, i still think my post was worth-posting. though, you've made me think about the whole thing a bit differently, so thanks for that.
Posted by mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) on April 24, 2008 at 7:47 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Chris, of course your post was worth posting! In fact, if you hadn't posted yours, I probably wouldn't have posted mine. I'll keep that in mind when the hordes come to crucify me ;)
Posted by duplenty (anonymous) on April 24, 2008 at 11:04 a.m. (Suggest removal)
"In our modern culture we seem to equate “marriage to underaged girls” with “brutal rape of babies.” Not so. These “children” were probably quite a bit less traumatized by their wedding night than I was by losing my virginity against my will at roughly the same age. "
That's an assumption of gargantuan proportion.
Posted by dolores2175 (April Fleming) on April 24, 2008 at 11:09 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I think this is more applicable in polygamous groups that are not living under the influence of Warren Jeffs.
The woman featured most frequently on CNN and MSN is Carolyn Jessop, who was married to Merril Jessop, the leader of the raided Texas ranch. She recently wrote a book about what it was like to grow up in these circumstances and the specific abuse that happened around her and and continues to happen among the followers of Warren Jeffs. Here's her wiki page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolyn_Jes...
Others that have left or escaped these FLDS branches and reporters and investigators who have worked on these cases for a long time strongly reinforce her story as accurate.
I tend to think religion generally is pretty wacky (some more than others), but I'm getting a lot better about not caring what people do as long as no one's being hurt and it doesn't affect me. These women and their many, many, many children in my opinion are victims.
I gotta go with the state Texas on this one. There's something I didn't expect I'd say anytime soon.
Posted by OtherJoel (anonymous) on April 24, 2008 at 11:29 a.m. (Suggest removal)
"These women and their many, many, many children in my opinion are victims."
And that's the piece that is missing from much of what I've read about this. They were brought up in that world, so blaming them for their beliefs is like blaming me for enjoying the taste of a hamburger. It's natural for them, so it's not fair to ridicule the women who live in this very isolated culture. It IS weird, I know, and I have serious disagreements with the chauvinist and racist heritage of Mormonism, but I'm not into blaming the victim. Go after the Warren Jeffs of the world all you want, though.
The other part of me also thinks about the whole First Amendment issues. Where do we draw the line between religious freedom and criminally repressive practices? So while it's my gut response to condemn polygamy and other similarly reactionary religious practices, I also know that my thinking something is weird is not an adequate test of constitutionality.
I think we need a religion that supports polyandry to balance things out. It would be interesting to see what reactions would be if the sexes were reversed.
Posted by mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) on April 24, 2008 at 11:53 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Exactly, OtherJoel. That's what I was getting at.
Hmm, polyandry . . . there really hasn't been a culture or circumstance that has supported the evolution of such a thing. I mean, a woman doesn't need *two* husbands to support her and her children, and quite often, historically, one man has been able to support multiple wives and children. (I'm not being anti-feminist, here, I'm speaking anthropolgically.) Families have traditionally had one person who is the "head"; I don't see too many men being willling to defer to the First Husband's authority, you know?
Personally, I don't believe that polygamy, or polyandry, for that matter, should be illegal. I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I also don't think that there's anything wrong with a girl over the age of sixteen or so choosing to marrying an older man, even if he's already got a couple of wives. As it's practiced by the Warren Jeffs cults, though . . . yeah. Full of all sorts of bad and wrong.
Posted by PatrickJoseph (Patrick Giroux) on April 24, 2008 at 12:12 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Here's a condensed reading of Carolyn Jessop's book on Slate:
http://www.slate.com/id/2189275/
Posted by mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) on April 24, 2008 at 12:15 p.m. (Suggest removal)
And I'm not saying that there weren't abuses taking place at that ranch, because I'm sure there were, but it's come out that the call which prompted the raid was, in all probability, a hoax.
http://www.sltrib.com/polygamy/ci_899315...
Posted by dolores2175 (April Fleming) on April 24, 2008 at 12:25 p.m. (Suggest removal)
That call is a really tricky situation. If, however, the prosecution can show that law enforcement had every reason to believe the call was real, it shouldn't affect the raid.
Jeffs is still apparently exerting control of the church through his brother. He's soo creepy... shudder.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warren_Jeff...
Patrick, it's interesting that Carolyn Jessop made some of the costumes for Big Love to earn some money. I'd assume they were Chloe Sevigny's outfits b/c she was the only one that wore the pioneer dresses (which, c'mon, are pretty goofy looking, all sensitivity aside). :)
Posted by ladylaw (Terry Bush) on April 24, 2008 at 12:47 p.m. (Suggest removal)
In days past, I would have whole heartedly supported women being allowed to have more then one husband - lots of reasons for that (which I will not go into). But that was before I got older, more tired, and less able to put up with BS.
What we haven't heard talked about in connection with this compound situation (as much) are two things that boggle my mind but that reportedly go/went on there and other such places - they don't know what child belongs to whom, b/c it's so communal (nothing illegal or abusive about that - just different) AND what happens to the young males (driven out at puberty so they can't compete for the girls).
Being different is not wrong or illegal (or at least it shouldn't be in my opinion). And yes, not that long ago (what 100 years) females were chattel to be bred very young by the strongest male that claimed her (or got her parents OK). But .... this is not about being different. This is about violating current laws.
The current law of THIS land is that no adult (male or female) is lawfully allowed to mate with an underage child. Period. There is no current exception that says "you can mate with under-age children if your religion allows it!" any more then we have a religious exception allowing virgin sacrifices (which also used to happen in days gone by!).
We can change our laws if enough people want to do that .... but until then, the people who choose a way of life that violates currently legislated value systems are risking prosecution under the law. That is what is going on now. They are being charged (possibly) with child endangerment for allowing the child rape laws to be violated. Period. Whether brain-washed, classy, or otherwise, they stand accused of breaking laws (we'll see if there is enough evidence to make it stick).
The "but we are above the law or the law should be changed" argument is one used by a lot of people who choose to break a lot of laws. It rarely works. (Unless you are like Martin Luther King, Jr. and pack the jails with regular people who are willing to go to prison to stand up against an "unjust" law!).
Posted by mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) on April 24, 2008 at 12:54 p.m. (Suggest removal)
Yup, they sure are . . . however, watching video footage of that raid, I have to say . . . it was kind of nice seeing little girls dressed like little girls instead of off-duty strippers. It was the other end of the extreme, of course, but still sort of refreshing to me, as I realize that in another few years, I'm going to have to be making my daughter's clothes if I want to dress her in something that doesn't have "Juicy" spelled out across her ass.
Jeffs is creepier than shitting dick nipples. He's not a religious leader, he's a pyramid-scheme huckster.
Posted by ladylaw (Terry Bush) on April 24, 2008 at 1:32 p.m. (Suggest removal)
I think there is probably a happy medium that can be struck between "little house on the 1800 prarie" costumes and mini-stripper attire. I know my mother's sewing kept me in adequate, if not stylish, attire until I was out of high-school!
Shitting dick nipples.....Ewww. I am not sure what that is, but it sounds gross. Really gross!
Most cult leaders are hucksters, at best! But there doesn't ever seem to be a lack of people ready and willing to follow someone else's lead - no matter how nutty it may seem to others. Guess some folks just want some kind of order & control (over life, themselves, or others) so badly they can ignore the myriad of other problems that kind of lock-down security (lack of chaos) causes.
Posted by OtherJoel (anonymous) on April 24, 2008 at 1:47 p.m. (Suggest removal)
"The current law of THIS land is that no adult (male or female) is lawfully allowed to mate with an underage child. Period. There is no current exception that says "you can mate with under-age children if your religion allows it!"
Not trying to out-law the lawyer here, but I'm trying to understand -- if one could (hypothetically) establish that underage marriage is a fundamental part of one's religion, wouldn't that then become a constitutional issue and thereby supercede any state's laws of consent?
The polyandry comment was more of a "what if" question than anything else. Not really saying it is something we'd actually see (I am pretty sure there have been polyandrous tribal societies though).
I'm going to start a religion that consists of doing heroin and sharing a wife with three other dudes, just to establish a polyandrous culture in the good ol' USA.
Posted by mitzibel (Misty Nuckolls) on April 24, 2008 at 2:12 p.m. (Suggest removal)
At least the heroin part will have legal precedence---think Peyote church.
Posted by Dazie (Aileen Dingus) on April 25, 2008 at 8:12 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Well, I'd be willing to take a hit for the team and do the polyandry thing. For research. Um. yeah.
You know... for science's sake and all...
Posted by ladylaw (Terry Bush) on April 25, 2008 at 10:36 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Yea, the "my church requires this" defense is used a lot by law breakers. Sometimes, as with the Peyote case or minors drinking wine at services, it has worked. More often, as with the ritual killing of animals or sex with minors, it has not. Often it turns upon how long the religion has existed and how wide spread (or central to) the religion the objected to conduct has been in place.
What if the man-boy-love club forms a religion that has as a central tenant the sacredness of sex between 40-50 year old men and 5-12 year old boys? Do you think the courts would recognize a religious right to practice that sexual conduct?
The courts of America did not recognize a right to pologomy, and that sent some LDS folks scurrying to hide their multiple wife situation. Now, it looks like Texas is taking note of the folks who have ignored the laws for some time, to take more then one wife, and very young ones at that. The claim it's a religious practice will no doubt be made. But, given this country's extreme dislike of pedophilia (at least on the books anyway), I would not bet that a court is going to allow that defense to making/having/letting 13 year old girls be married to 50 year old men. It might fly - because so many men aren't as offended by that nearly as much as they would be by a same sex practice of the same kind. But I doubt it.
Posted by ladylaw (Terry Bush) on April 25, 2008 at 10:38 a.m. (Suggest removal)
And Dazie, shame on you! LOL. But it always struck me that it made more physical sense to have multiple husband then multiple wives. Very few men can satisfy even one woman, let alone more then one. While some women are quite capable of "taking on all comers" so to speak......and willing to do so. Ahem.
Posted by OtherJoel (anonymous) on April 25, 2008 at 10:43 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I see your point, LL. Thanks for the explanation. On the first post, anyway. I no longer feel like I have anything to add on the second.
Post a comment
(Requires free lawrence.com registration.)