[ExI] flds raid, was general repudiation...

BillK pharos at gmail.com
Sun Apr 27 16:59:35 UTC 2008


On Sun, Apr 27, 2008 at 5:28 PM, Brent Allsop wrote:
>
>  I always have to chuckle how everyone has this miss perception that FLDS
>  (Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) Mormons or
>  any other non LDS Mormons, are in some sympathetic way related to LDS
>  Mormons.  (Gee, how can anyone make such a mistaken association? ;)
>
>  When in fact, there is no loss of hate and intolerance between any of
>  the many break away "sects" of Mormonism.  My favorite polygamist break
>  away group is not the FLDS, but the TLC LDS (True and Living Church of
>  Jesus Christ of Saints of the Last Days.)  President Harmstrom, the
>  leader of this group claims to have had Joseph Smith appear to him in a
>  vision, in which the now Angel Joseph Smith taught him that the
>  leadership of the LDS church had fallen, and that he was to "restore"
>  the one true church of Jesus Christ again to the earth.  (Remember, that
>  Joseph Smith claimed to have similar angels and visits from God, who
>  also informed him that the Pope and other Christian churches had fallen,
>  were the "whore of all the earth", and that he was to restore Christ's
>  one true church again to the earth.)
>
>  Anyone, that is not a member of THE Mormon church (or the LDS church) is
>  very much ostracized and abused in Utah.  For example, a bunch of people
>  that have only done polygamy, and not abused children, have been
>  prosecuted, primarily by LDS church members that I believe hate them so
>  much for going against the LDS church leadership in any way.  That is
>  why there are so many of these groups not actually in Utah, but in
>  border towns in Colorado, Arizona, and some necessarily, as far away as
>  Texas.  I believe any of these groups would have been treated far worse
>  in all ways, were they in Utah.
>
>  Lately, there are constant pieces in Utah Newspapers and everywhere LDS
>  Mormons can proclaim such, trying to clear up this "miss perception"
>  that the FLDS members have anything to do with THE LDS church.  I view
>  it kind of like, if you take a bunch of crazy people that think they are
>  Jesus, and throw them in a room together, they all hate each other.  So
>  in an attempt to avoid this, they all move to neighboring rooms, um, I
>  mean States, Texas, and the like.
>


I entirely agree, Brent. When I said 'too many of them' I wasn't
referring to THE LDS church. I meant the FLDS breakaways and others
like them.

Utah was going after them, as you say, but in a much more restrained
fashion. They were processing each individual complaint as they arose,
seeking DNA samples and warrants against individuals. Utah *knew* that
this abuse was widespread and systematic in the FLDS, but they refused
to remove any children from the abuse until a complaint was received.
This enabled these groups to continue with the abuse and move away
when the pressure became too great.

Utah's Attorney General was quoted as saying:
    Shurtleff said he had no plans to conduct a similar mass-scale
raid on the polygamous border towns of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado
City, Ariz.
    "And do what? Arrest thousands of polygamists in Utah? We wouldn't
have 400 kids, we'd have thousands in our foster care and thousands of
their parents in the prison system. It's not practical to do that,"
Shurtleff said. "We were right to focus on abused children."
--------------------

Utah is blatantly saying that their system couldn't cope with the
thousands of abusers and he was unable to rescue the thousands of
abused children


BillK



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