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Taliban-Town, USA
Andrew Gumbel reports on the self-proclaimed Mormon "prophet," Warren Jeffs, who's installed himself as religious dictator of a small community in Utah -- one which could very well be the next Waco:

Jeffs permits no books, newspapers or television for his followers, telling them that much of the outside world is evil. Public entertainment was never a big feature of life in Colorado City, just the occasional dance or picnic, but now it has been banned altogether. Jeffs expects every family to hang at least one portrait of him above their mantlepiece, and to listen to tapes of his sermons -- there are at least 150 -- until they can be recited verbatim.

To enforce his will, he has formed a gang of teenage boys, known variously as Uncle Warren's Sons of Helaman or, simply, the God Squad, who knock on people's doors unannounced and conduct searches to check for signs of insubordination.

Since Jeffs controls the trust that owns all the land in Hildale and Colorado City, and since he claims divine authority to determine every aspect of the lives of the 6,000-odd inhabitants, from the jobs they do to the people they marry, he has many ways of expressing his displeasure.

In the past few months, he has broken up three dozen polygamous families, "reassigning" wives and children whose menfolk have fallen out of favour. Last month, Jeffs excommunicated and expelled 20 prominent people, including his nonagenarian chief bishop, Fred Jessop, longstanding mayor Dan Barlow, and several members of Barlow's extended family. The current whereabouts of some of those expelled is far from clear.

Others, meanwhile, have refused to leave, rising up instead in open revolt against him.

The most visible rebel, 35-year-old Ross Chatwin, recently invited the national media to gather in front of the house he has been ordered to give up and hear him liken Jeffs to Adolf Hitler. "Warren is out of control," Chatwin later told me in his sparsely furnished living room, as four of his six children ran in and out.

"If men are not perfectly obedient and submissive to him, he shatters their families. And people go along with it, because they are totally convinced he is talking to God daily. It truly is one of the most effective brain-washing schemes since Hitler."

At the same time as Jeffs is conducting a purge within his community, he is facing mounting pressure from the outside world, as ever more alarming reports surface of a polygamy culture in Colorado City tantamount to a slavery racket in teenage girls. The testimony of dozens of girls who have run away from the community, some of whom have gone on to testify in court, suggests that sex abuse, paedophilia and incest are rampant.

Young girls -- they used to be as young as 11 or 12, although in recent times they have more typically been 15 or 16 -- are given away in marriage solely on the say-so of the prophet. They will be traded among the men like chattel. Often, their designated husbands are old enough to be their grandfathers, or even their great-grandfathers, and have multiple wives and children already. Not only are the girls not consulted ahead of time; they are effectively raped on their wedding nights, and held in a state of captivity thereafter.

After decades of inactivity -- the result of fear, laziness and a residual sympathy for the polygamists among mainstream Mormons -- the authorities in both Arizona and Utah have decided it is time to crack down, and Warren Jeffs may very well be their prime target. Weak laws make it hard to prosecute polygamy in and of itself, but both states deem it a felony for a man to have sex with a minor, and Utah birth certificates show that Jeffs has conceived children with at least two girls under the age of 18.

Can we all please join the 21st century before somebody gets hurt?


TECHNICAL NOTE: The story has some minor text-translation problems -- question marks where there should be dashes (on Mac OS X Explorer and Safari browsers), but is well-worth a read.

Posted by aalkon at February 23, 2004 7:21 AM

Comments

Another reason why we're secular. This stuff makes me sick--at least an anti-polygamy activist named Flora Jessops is helping fleeing women to restart their lives. Too bad the geography is so seclusive--I would've had the army arrest all those molesting sick b**t**ds and liberate all the women.

Posted by: Cecile at February 23, 2004 7:30 PM

Right on, Cecile! Hmm...now there's something valuable for those silly victim-feminist Vagina Monologuers to do!

Posted by: Amy Alkon at February 23, 2004 7:58 PM

To start with, I grew up in Colorado City. I was a Sargent in the Sons of Helaman less than a year ago. I would like to set the record straight here, the Sons of Helaman don't knock on anyone's door for any reason let alone to "check for signs of insubordination." The Sons of Helaman are not that different from boy scouts although the training is based more on how to work together and get along with others than how to survive in the wild.

The last time (to the best of my knowledge and i was in contact with Warren Jeffs almost daily for the last few years of my time there) that anyone was married under the age of 15 was three generations ago when my Great-Grandfather married my Great-Grandmother so that she could remain part of the religion. Her parents were leaving and wanted to take her with them but she didn't want to go so she married my Great-Grandfather. It is very rare that anyone gets married under the age of 17 and most are at least 18. My younger sister got married within a month of turning 15. The only way that she got married that young was because she insisted it. She wanted to get married that young and now, several years later she has a couple of children and is as happy with her marriage as any women ever was.

Another thing that is greatly mistaken is that girls are forced into marriage. For the more part that simply isn't the truth. Women have the right to refuse a marriage, but the men do not. For a man to refuse a wife is to seal his eternal doom but it isn't necisarry so for a women.

Posted by: Ammon at March 25, 2004 4:00 PM

i believe that if that is the religion,than they should be faithful and do what the book says. that is family that you have expressed your feelingss about

Posted by: jessica at April 2, 2004 7:57 AM

That is the religion and for the more part they live it, but the few who do not live their religion cause more grief and suffering for the rest of the ppl there than they realize.

I express my feelings about family because that is what I know, that is what the community is, FAMILY. You won't find a more family friendly environment anywhere in the world, you may find its equivelant, but you won't find a better one.

Posted by: Ammon at April 6, 2004 5:17 PM

Warren Jeffs is a child-molester, a bigamist, and a liar...but I could actually forgive all that, and let him go on practicing this insideous form of child sex slavery, of only....

...HE DIDN'T MAKE HIMSELF GOD.

In John 14:5, Jesus Christ said "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me."

In declaring that he was the absolute ruler and prophet, and that he (not God!) had the power of salvation over those people, he is damning each and every one of those souls to hell by leading them away from the TRUE teachings of Christ (Which, BTW, even mainstream Mormans believe in!)

Posted by: the SASS Man at April 12, 2004 8:45 PM

Oh, please. How utterly silly...Jesus this, Jesus that - and with not a shred of evidence that Jesus lived or was more than a nice Jewish hippie if he did - or evidence of god or any of it. Look at the calendar. It's 2004. If you have opposable thumbs, it probably means you have the ability to reason. Why not try?

Posted by: Amy Alkon at April 12, 2004 9:17 PM

If these people wish to squirrel themselves away in a bubble-world and miss the wonders of technology in the 21rst century, why not let them? I mean, who cares?

Amy Alkon: I can judge from the few sentences you wrote that you are an extremely intelligent female. That's surprising, because most people are not. Email me at ceo@thephoenixcompany.net ... I would like to correspond with you a bit.

Posted by: The Phoenix at June 28, 2004 3:13 AM