Flds Quotes

But perhaps the greatest attraction of Mormonism was the promise that each follower would be granted an extraordinarily intimate relationship with God. Joseph taught and encouraged his adherents to receive personal communiqués straight from the Lord. Divine revelation formed the bedrock of the religion.

How could any woman endure a life of misery with such a cheap promise of appreciation after her death?

In the end, He's the only reason that I made it. Sometimes that's the only thing we have. Whether you call it God, or hope, or faith -whatever word you use- the fact is, I couldn't have survived if I hadn't believed in something. It was the one part of me that neither Warren nor Allen could touch, and no matter what happens, as long as I have that, I've won.

I believe that past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior when it comes to religious fanaticism.

Warren Jeffs is both a problem and the symptom of a problem. The FLDS has created a lot of Warrens, men who are intoxicated with their own power, believing they need at least three wives to get into heaven and wanting to dominate women and children. Generation after generation of believers have been conditioned to equate obedience with salvation. People who have never been taught of allowed to think for themselves don't suddenly change. Change it too frightening.

To the narcissistic sociopath, a sexual experience is not about sex; it's about having complete control over his victims. They satisfy their sick compulsions by preying on vulnerable victims who they feel can most easily be manipulated and are least likely to expose their crimes. Warren needed the FLDS even more than the rebel religion needed a leader. His specialized psychosis was dependent on a unique religious hook that just would not work in the general population. In the outside world, he would never have been able to convince anyone to take him seriously. But with the FLDS predilection for blind religious obedience and submission to authority, he had the willing, captive audience that he needed, like a scientist needs labs rats.

I took some groceries over to Ross and Lori and their kids. They no longer had any source of income, and they were living like refugees trapped in a town that treated them as if they had the plague. No work, no money, no food, so I would try to help when I could. My dad had taught me that when you help others, you are really helping yourself, and it gave my spirits a boost to see the family hang tough while the FLDS tried to crush them.

It is almost impossible for a building contractor to win a project on which the FLDS is also bidding, because the church membership has such a vast pool of free labor, using their own young kids to bypass minimum wage and tax laws. The companies and the contracts are privately held but are secretly consecrated to the church to support its massive legal fees and the extravagant lifestyle of the church hierarchy. Even the wages of the boys are donated to the church. Legitimate business and government entities are unwittingly helping maintain the FLDS leaders’ lavish lifestyles, supporting illegal underage marriage, and participating in the abandonment and neglect of young boys by doing business with a criminal organization that openly thumbs its nose at the laws which the rest of us live by.

Despite the fact that Uncle Rulon and his followers regard the governments of Arizona, Utah, and the United States as Satanic forces out to destroy the UEP, their polygamous community receives more than $6 million a year in public funds. More than $4 million of government largesse flows each year into the Colorado City public school district—which, according to the Phoenix New Times, “is operated primarily for the financial benefit of the FLDS Church and for the personal enrichment of FLDS school district leaders.” Reporter John Dougherty determined that school administrators have “plundered the district’s treasury by running up thousands of dollars in personal expenses on district credit cards, purchasing expensive vehicles for their personal use and engaging in extensive travel. The spending spree culminated in December [2000], when the district purchased a $220,000 Cessna 210 airplane to facilitate trips by district personnel to cities across Arizona.” Colorado City has received $1.9 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to pave its streets, improve the fire department, and upgrade the water system. Immediately south of the city limits, the federal government built a $2.8 million airport that serves almost no one beyond the fundamentalist community. Thirty-three percent of the town’s residents receive food stamps—compared to the state average of 4.7 percent. 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. “Uncle Rulon justifies all that assistance from the wicked government by explaining that really the money is coming from the Lord,” says DeLoy Bateman. “We’re taught that it’s the Lord’s way of manipulating the system to take care of his chosen people.” Fundamentalists call defrauding the government “bleeding the beast” and regard it as a virtuous act.

another young FLDS woman get thrown to the wolves that spring. Like

As I learned more about choice, and looked over the extensive evidence in all of the cases I had testified in, I realized that what was happening in the FLDS was human trafficking-both for labor and for sex. In mainstream society, money and lust are the currency. In the FLDS, salvation and position are the currency, but the forced acts of labor and sex are the same-the very definition of slavery. And whether greed or God is the currency, it is not right to own another's free agency.

But could she do it? Would she do it? Back to that debate. Was it murder if she caught him just standing around, non-threatening? How about when he was just standing there in the FLDS Mormon Temple a few months back? Would it have been murder then? His female victims were being held captive. Armond was waiting for the right price before he’d sell those innocent teenage girls into sex slavery. He had shot Sarah that day. Why can’t she just shoot him back? Make it even. She’d be the better shot. Once Armond was dead, no more little girls could be kidnapped, shipped overseas and sold to horny old men. Once Armond

The U.S. Department of Justice filed a complaint against Colorado City and Hildale in June 2012, alleging that by acquiescing to the influence of the FLDS Church in the areas of law enforcement, housing, and access to public facilities, and discriminating against non-FLDS residents, the two areas and agencies under their control violated the First, Fourth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution, as well as the Fair Housing Act and Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.75 The lawsuit is currently pending.

The FLDS was in the news in 2008 when Texas authorities raided their Yearning for Zion Ranch, and discovered girls who appeared to be pregnant, records of underage marriages, and a bed in the sanctuary.65 The authorities prosecuted and convicted eleven men, including Warren Jeffs.66 Throughout the proceedings, their lawyers argued that the prosecutions were “anti-religious” and were in violation of their constitutional rights. This is the kind of discourse we, as a culture, have encouraged. It is dangerous when courts listen.

Some of the boys have sued, and the FLDS's response has been the First Amendment, with one of the church's legal representatives telling one reporter, “There is no exception in the First Amendment for minors.”166 Nor is there an exception in family law for the religious abandonment of children. In fact, there is no First Amendment principle that protects any organization, religious or not, from discarding its children at will. Parents have responsibilities to their underage children, and any interpretation of the First Amendment that says otherwise has hijacked fundamental principles in an ordered society. Yet,

Most kids who left or got kicked out of the FLDS ran into very real, very debilitating issues. Boys and girls who had lived all their lives to please their families, church, and Prophet were cut from family ties with no education. Ninety percent or more of them wound up heavily involved in drugs, alcohol, promiscuity, and prostitution, or as the victims of some kind of physical, emotional, or sexual abuse. I

With no other choice, I'd submitted to the will of our prophet and had married my nineteen-year-old first cousin.

Maybe the media will for once do their job right and inform the public about these abusive communities. They should just like the rest of us, be following the rules and regulations of the land. We all need to help by finding a legal means to change this abusive society, nestled among the dusty red sand hills of the Vermillion Cliffs in southwestern Utah and the Arizona Strip. -Colorado City, 2004 "The Ver'million' Cliffs Polygamists, A View From The Outside

To an FLDS man, if a woman was in any way rebellious, the solution was to get her married and keep her pregnant. Then all of that rebellion would be “bred” right out of her.

Stories began running rampant among the FLDS about Jesus’s mother Mary being twelve when she became pregnant. In a very twisted way, it became almost a sign of “holiness” to justify a wedding for one so young. With hundreds of these girls being married off, I could not help but feel dread and horror. Some

Years later, Brian would lose his life, and it would break my heart to see his name added to the long list of FLDS boys and young men who had overdosed on drugs or taken their lives.

I have the right to say ‘no’ to anything when I feel I am not ready, it is unsafe, or violates my values.” Just for breathing, I deserved the same fundamental human rights as everybody else—even men! For a woman from the FLDS, this was a huge awakening. This was Genshai.

my society, and even during the trials in Texas, I hated it when men and defense lawyers would say, “You had every right to ______” —whatever their argument was. But I was quick to clarify that women did not have every right. With few exceptions, results show that men’s and women’s rights are vastly different in the FLDS, because women are treated as chattel, to be yoked and chained and traded like mere possessions and property.

that Faunita couldn’t see or hear for three days. In the FLDS culture, a man’s wife is his property and he can do whatever he wants to do to her. If a woman complains about violence or abuse, everyone turns on her. The assumption is that she’s disobedient. It’s always her fault. It’s a huge disgrace if your husband beats you. So women rarely speak about abuse because once they do, they’re considered rebellious.

The principle of celestial marriage is what defines the FLDS faith. A man must have multiple wives if he expects to do well in heaven, where he can eventually become a god and wind up with his own planet.