Free Innocent FLDS Children Now!

[Moksha]

One of the posters on another forum mentioned that he has worked with young boys from the FLDS culture in Los Vegas, who sold themselves for money after they were routinely tossed out of the FLDS community so as not to provide competition for the hand of the teen brides.

Another poster commented:

You comments blew me away. How horrible. What does the FLDS do to its children? To think that they throw out so many young boys who basically have no job skills and have to sell their bodies in order to survive. I thought it was just the girls that were being abused and now it seems that many of the boys are also abused. May God have mercy on these poor kids and protect them.

Blew me away too. This is one result of driving the young boys out that I had never considered. They would have to hustle to make it in the world. Where their counterparts from mainstream society would be going to high school, these kids are on the streets. Even worse, they are so ill prepared to fend for themselves due to their unusual upbringing.

Makes me sad.

.

[Kamperfoelie]

i did not want to get into this game of endless back and forth, but feel compelled now to set straight what i said before, in the light of how its apparently perceived.

Quote:
first off, brainwashing fourteen year olds to believe its good or even mandatory to have relations is wrong. period. The same goes for doing it to anyone of any age, come to think of it. Is it brainwashing children or exercising religious practices that have been in existence for thousands of years? Though they may appear similar there's a big difference between the two.
I'd like to clarify: brainwashing runs contrary to both free agency and what i would consider good moral judgement. You'll note i did not infer who was doing the brainwashing. Be it MTV or the FLDS, brainwashing is wrong either way.
True Christian religious practices can only affirm free agency not diminish it.

later quote:
In this context we have girls of 14 forced to be with men (plural) that they do not even know, also of ages 50 and above, with no perceived perspective of eternal salvation (be that notion misguided or otherwise). These children do not seem forced to do anything in the traditional sense of being forced(ie. no one literally has held a gun to their head-this has never been alleged). One may say that there is psychological trauma. But this has not been proven yet, whereas the forms of abuse that you discussed above have. All of the differences could be merely religious and cultural.
...
You say they have no percieved perspective of eternal salvation. How do you know this? Perspective according to who? You?

The FLDS girls are led to believe, correctly or otherwise, that their way of life brings them closer to God. The victims described previously are not given that perspective. If they even consider God's plan for their lives, it will be hard to discern His Glory in their circumstance.

Two more thoughts:
Not too long ago, America sent out a force of men to depose a (perceived) tyrant. The government sent their finest men, and when the dust settles, the (perceived) tyrant is in chains. It is then, and only then, that the government starts to think what they should do with the people they´ve liberated. Because of poor planning, chaos ensues.
If only they had thought ahead, the human cost could have been so much smaller, and healing could have started so much sooner... Am i the only one to think the texas CPS could have learned from Iraq?

Also the issue of the 'lost boys' seems to run contrary to many ordinances "do unto others... ", "love your fellow man as you....". Unchristian, in short.
When the whole "plural thing" was first 'introduced', America was at war and loss of life on the battlefield meant there was a substantial number more women than men around, and the country/church urgently needed to repopulate. In those circumstances, lost boys were not an issue or even a possibility. would i be right to think the temporary nature of these circumstances explains the temporary nature of this ordinance?

[Fiannan]

Originally Posted by MyDogSkip

Why do you find that disturbing...considering that the life expectency was like maybe late 20's early 30's?

I think most of this was due to a high level of infant mortality. If you did survive the vulnerable years of birth to around one year of age then you did live considerably longer -- I think modern-day Afghanistan is a good picture of what it was ike then since around 20% of the kids don't make it to adulthood (so the average lifespan per capita is lowered).

Also, marriage was done at a young age to insure virginity. Even today in Middle Eastern nations not being a virgin can get you killed by your parents. My son knows a guy from Iraq who is about 17. In class there was a discussion about pre-marrital sex and someone asked him what he would do if his sister lost her virginity before marriage. He did not joke...he just said he would kill her for dishonoring the family. And this kid comes from a fairly secular and professional family background.

In much of central Africa and Somolia they remove the external sexual organs from women at around 12 - 14 so the girls will be less likely to have sex outside of marriage and once married will not be as likely to commit adultery.

I am not sure but perhaps this is one reason the FLDS urge young marriage as they too may put a high value on virginity being preserved. The longer a person waits to get married the more likely they will have sex without the benefit of a wedding ring. In countries in Europe where people don't get married until their late 20s or early 30s do you really expect any statistically significant numbers of them are still virgins?

[Fiannan]

This issue with the "Lostboys" really bugs me about the FLDS, even more so that women getting married at young ages. I have studied other polygamist groups and many get past the statistical problem of overall equal numbers of males and females in the younger ages by sending the boys on missions. These boys are sent out to work, go to school (college), and, most importantly, convert young women and bring them back as their wives. Hey, seeking new wives in college settings might even be an ideal eugenic policy for a polygamist group as you are more likely to get healthy and intelligent genes in such a setting.

That worked for the Muslim conquest of what was once a Christian Middle East -- Muslim women cannot marry non-Muslim men but a Muslim can take up to four non-Muslim wives if there is agreement that the children will be raised Muslim. The Koran even urges adoption of women from orphanages. So since Christians were less likely to have polygamy, and females were a valuable commodity for raising up children to Allah, eventually the Christian element was pretty well bred out.

So if the FLDS would merely raise their boys to do this, as well as not taking one part of the Gospel (the allowance for polygamy) and making it THE GOSPEL (thereby men maybe having two or three wives rather than someone like Jeff's having 70) they would grow in numbers as well as in public acceptance.

[pam]

Nice way to try and justify their actions but I don't believe it.

[Fiannan]

Originally Posted by pam

Nice way to try and justify their actions but I don't believe it.

Can you be more specific?

[pam]

I think alot of what they perceive to be as part of their religion also has to do with the control the men have over women. Sex is a huge control factor. The marrying of very young girls to older men is a control factor. I think it's all about control. Not trying to save a young girl's virginity. Just my opinion of course.

[Fiannan]

Originally Posted by pam

I think alot of what they perceive to be as part of their religion also has to do with the control the men have over women. Sex is a huge control factor. The marrying of very young girls to older men is a control factor. I think it's all about control. Not trying to save a young girl's virginity. Just my opinion of course.

Sounds close to what feminists claim when they say any heterosexual sex merely sustains the patriarchal and male domination of women in society. Some feminists take it a step further to claim that any monogamist relationship also sustains the patriarchal order even if the monogamist couple is lesbian.

I don't buy the power thing. If anything, the man loses power in polygamy when his wives can gang up on him -- not to mention if their mother-in-laws join in.

[WillowTheWhisp]

How old are these 'lost boys'? A friend of mine just pointed out that orphaned children 'in care' here in orphanages are 'cast out' at 16 to fend for themselves. He was. So what will happen to teenage boys and girls removed from this ranch?

[rosie321]

When does it cross over the line from exercise of free religion into brainwashing? Who gets to be the judge and jury on this? Almost every religion has their own standards for acceptance to some higher state of being. People in belief systems are led to believe that their actions will lead them closer to heaven, celestial glory or some other reward.

Religion itself involves "brainwashing" people of their natural tendancies onto some ideal. Why do some feel they have the right to take anothers ability to choose whose brainwashing is better than another?

If you are totally honest, you will see how the government and media actually try to brainwash people or create ideals that all must live up to. We know their actions are always correct-right?

Injustices have always been perpetrated in the name of religion. Take a look at the Old Testament. That was a brutal time of hostile takeover in the name of God. When the Isrealites were taking over cities I'm sure their actions weren't percieved by the people in the lands that the Isrealites were loving their neighbors. Or that they were protecting their freedom and free agency. Older men were with younger women. Women were treated as property. If one person died women were given to another. Polygamy did occur. As did many other things in the name of religion.

True Christian religious practices can only affirm free agency not diminish it.

I'm not sure I can fully agree with you here. The practice of religion does not always appear to affirm free agency. In fact some christian groups strongly believe the belief in free agency is what got man into trouble to begin with. Much of this belief stems from what happened in the garden of even when man chose to go against the will of God.

Although its not as popular today, unless used against the LDS , fire and brimstone teaching used to be the norm. This created much fear and control over members as they were expected to follow certain standards. Despite this, many good christians rose from out of this experience.