Latest articles by Dorothy Allred Solomon
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Small Towns, Small Minds
Small Towns, Small Minds
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Karma Catches Up With FLDS
Karma Catches Up With FLDS
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Mudslinging, Polygamy-Style
Typically, fundamentalist polygamists have tried to keep themselves exempt from the ways of "the wicked world." But the alleged crimes of polygamous patriarchs have eroded their insular world, placing polygamists under scrutiny. And patriarchs have retaliated. In the past week, a series of controversies have proved that polygamists can sling mud with the most seasoned politicians. When FLDS apostate Dan Fischer testified against his former sect before the Senate Judiciary Committee, sect attorneys filed fourteen affidavits from his children and his former plural wives accusing Fischer of lies, non-support, and abuse.
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Why Do Some FLDS Teen Girls Marry While Others Don’t?
Some people ask if early marriage is mandated for FLDS teens? The obvious answer is "no," many are allowed to reach the ripe old age of 18 before being "assigned."
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Incest and Polygamy
Recently a young woman interviewed me for a paper she was writing on polygamy. One of her first questions involved incestuous marriages. People tend to equate polygamy with incestuous marriage partly because of the widely publicized Kingston cas...
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Jessops Behind Bars
Merrill Jessop, a leader in the FLDS community and top dog at the YFZ Ranch, may not be in prison, but two of his namesakes have been arrested, along with three other patriarachs, with bail set at $100,000 each. Raymond Merrill Jessop allegedly assaulted a minor in 2004, and Merrill Leroy Jessop took an ingénue to wife in 2006. After hearing Merrill Jessop's fifth wife, Carolyn, talk about her husband in her book, Escape, I'm amazed that the Jessops try to make marriage work with anyone, let alone a plural marriage to girls who are effectively children! Carolyn reports that sex between fundamentalists is awkward and functional-that they must work around layers of unshed clothing and that sensual pleasure doesn't enter the equation.
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Principle Voices Dissent
Principle Voices, an organization advocating the right to live the religious "Principle of Plural Marriage," disagrees with Senator Harry Reid's Victims of Polygamy Assistance Act 2008. Principle Voices fundamentally objects to the proposal that funds be offered to help people leave polygamy.
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Justice Shows Her Face in Texas
A scripture often quoted in my childhood in fundamentalist polygamy read, "Thy sins shall be shouted from the rooftops." I suppose our parents and teachers intended to warn us that there's nowhere and no way to hide dark deeds forever. Now, it seems that some patriarchs in the FLDS community will have their sins "shouted from the rooftops" via television antennae and satellite receivers.
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Fundamentalism and Violence
I've long been preoccupied by the link between fundamentalism and violence. My father's assassination by a fundamentalist cult first captured my interest. Then a series of violent crimes committed by people linked to polygamous fundamentalist groups underscored the connection: Besides my father, at least a dozen people were murdered by Ervil LeBaron's Church of the Lamb of God, including Ervil's own brother, Joel. Then an aspiring polygamist who believed himself to be God incarnate, David Longo, killed himself and left instructions with his wife to do the same; she forced their seven children off the balcony of a downtown Salt Lake City hotel, holding the baby in her arms as she jumped to her own death. Ronald and Don Lafferty slashed the throat of their sister-in-law Brenda Lafferty, and her baby daughter, because she wouldn't go along with polygamy. Polygamist John Singer refused to pay his water bill, his grounds being that the laws of God outstrip the laws of the state in importance; this and other conflicts with local law enforcement led to his being killed by a policeman's bullet. Ten years later, Singer's son-in-law, Adam Swapp, retaliated by firebombing an LDS stake center in Marion, Utah; during the ensuing gun battle, a police officer named Fred Haus was killed, and a member of the Singer family was paralyzed from the waist down. Then polygamist Jim Harmston organized followers into a fundamentalist militia currently holed up near Manti, Utah, a group reminiscent of the Branch Davidians of Waco, Texas.
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Power Over Lives
I woke up today thinking about Gloria Steinem. Weird, I know, but it had to be in response to a dream I had about Warren Jeffs performing plural marriages. Marriages of young women to old men. Marriages of young women to young men. Marriages, even, of his own daughters to men of his choosing. I think of my own husband who made his prospective sons-in-law run a gauntlet of challenges before he would consent to give his daughters' hands in marriage. Why would Jeffs so avidly arrange and marry, marry, marry people?
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FLDS Fashion?
Fldsdress.com. The new fashion line started because FLDS children taken into custody by Texas officials kept losing their clothes. Foster parents and group directors wanted the children to give up the long underwear and pioneer-style clothing in favor of panties and capris and lightweight blouses. So the prairie garb got lost or tossed. But FLDS moms insisted that their children be dressed the way they'd always dressed them. They made replacement clothing for their kids and sold it to the state of Texas.
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The State of Marriage
The State of Marriage
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FLDS Changes
People who watched what happened after the Short Creek raid of 1953 may have speculated (as I did) that the raid on the FLDS community at the YFZ Ranch near Eldorado, Texas would have little impact, other than to drive polygamists farther underground. But in fact, the whole community has been influenced by this forced dialogue with the state and communication with the media. Plural wives have spoken for their way of life, have taken media people on tours, have written op-ed letters to newspapers. Their children survived life outside the compound, lived in a variety of care centers and foster homes, and endured exposure to movies, television and public education. Even the men have engaged in conversations and correspondence, not only with reporters but with governors, directors of social service, and attorneys general.
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False Dilemma and Mind Control
Today, I’m still preoccupied with YFZ spokesman Willie Jessop’s complaint that FLDS women called to testify before the Texas Grand Jury were being forced to choose between their children and their husbands, their freedom and their faith. I keep mulling his statement over, wondering about faith at the price of freedom. And freedom at the price of faith.
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Whence These Peculiar Polygamists?
Whence These Peculiar Polygamists?
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What Gives With Our Girls?
Alarms went off as I read last Friday’s AP report: The principal of the Gloucester (Massachusetts) High School had announced the results of an investigation into the spike in teen pregnancy, seventeen this year as compared to an average of four in other years. It seems that a group of girls made a pact to get pregnant. None of the girls were over sixteen, and in visits to the clinic, they seemed more upset to find that they weren’t pregnant than to find that they were. One teen listed the father of her unborn child as a homeless man. The administrators described them as “girls who lack self-esteem and have a lack of love in their life.” Meanwhile, we’re worried sick about the child brides and teen mothers on the YFZ Ranch—as well we should be. Some of these FLDS girls are forced to marry and procreate long before they are ready (as clearly established in Elissa Wall’s recent book, Stolen Innocence). But some defiantly embrace the practice of young marriage and youthful pregnancy—in Massachusetts suburbs and throughout the state of Texas, in cities and towns, as well as in isolated fundamentalist communities in Arizona and Utah. What gives with our girls in America?
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By the Grace of God
In the case of fundamentalists, if agencies would teach the FLDS people to live in the mainstream by providing them with financial skills, knowledge about housing, vocational counseling, etc., many FLDS members would probably leave the YFZ Ranch and other FLDS communities on their own. Many of these fundamentalists have lived with “mind-forged manacles,” imprisoned by religious leaders who kept them from receiving education and from making their own decisions. They have been denied the American right to “pursuit of happiness” and like everyone, they long for freedom. If such a life-skills investment could be made, the bill would amount to far less than the $14 million spent ineffectively trying to eradicate this stubborn and devout population. If the fundamentalists knew that they were free and capable, they’d put their energy into building their own lives instead of adamantly defending themselves.
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Why Would Women Share?
People who know little about polygamy express surprise when they discover that so many of the FLDS women are returning to the YFZ Ranch. Even though it’s clear that these women could lose their children if they again put them at risk of early marriage and other types of coercion, many mothers have taken the risk and returned to their homes. Why on earth, mainstream women ask, would a woman want to go back to such a situation? I can relate to this confusion. I never wanted to live polygamy myself. But to tell the truth, I missed having many shoulders to bear life’s burdens, and many minds to solve a problem, and many mouths to share food and information. As my mother used to say, “Many hands make light work.” I know why my mother liked plural marriage to the degree that she did. She got to live next door to her twin sister, who was also married to my father. She got to share her whole life with the two people to whom she was closest.
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Cognitive Dissonance
I’m of two minds about the YFZ children going home. I’m glad that the children—especially the babies, toddlers, and pre-schoolers—are reunited with their mothers, and that they’ll be living and sleeping in familiar surroundings. How well I remember the first raid that separated us, and when my mother and her children reunited with my father and the other mothers, what a celebration; what joy! There’s nothing like losing what you took for granted to make you grateful for it. But FLDS leaders will be vindicated by this capitulation. I can hear them now: Sanctimonious voices saying that God intervened in their behalf. They’ll hold it as proof that they are leading righteous lives (regardless of any child abuse). Uplifted eyes and hands, pointing out that they prophesied the events of the past six weeks, and holding it up as a litmus test of their divine connection.
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Meredith Offers Real Solutions
Meredith called yesterday morning, having found my contact information through the Utah/Arizona Safety Net Committee of which I’m proud to be a part. She’s a Texan by birth but now lives with her husband in the beautiful northwest. She’s been riveted by the drama unfolding in her home state as the children of the YFZ Ranch are flung far and wide. In response to her horror (about the secret world of polygamy), Meredith has taken the time to educate herself, reading everything she can get her hands on about the subject. She’s dismayed that women who have tried to leave the FLDS community have suffered so much without getting adequate help. She’s concluded that any young woman who’s being forced into marriage should have the freedom and safety to leave the fundamentalist group that’s pushing her around. She also sees the reverberations of massive state intervention. So she wants to do something about it. She doesn’t just talk the talk. She’s willing to walk the walk, putting her own comfort and resources on the line. She’s offering a guesthouse on her property where women with children can stay long enough to “get launched” and stand on their own.
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Women Who Run the Polygamist Show
Some of you may have seen the women interviewed by reporters, including Oprah and Lisa See at the YFZ Ranch. Did you wonder why these particular women were chosen to speak? Given what I’ve learned about women who represent the fundamentalist community, I can conclude that Janet, Amy and Sally are reliable supporters of the patriarchal hierarchy. They have proven themselves, therefore they have as much political clout as a fundamentalist woman can have. They can be trusted to speak the party line no matter what questions are asked. Acceptable communication goes something like this: ‘Everything at the YFZ Ranch and in the FLDS Church is wonderful. My husband is wonderful. My sisters are wonderful. Our children are wonderful. Our prophet is a good, clean, pure man. He teaches us how to be good and clean and pure. Young teenagers who marry choose it, and they are well taken care of—in fact (Janet implied) especially taken care of. (Do even fundamentalist young women cultivate Sugar Daddies?)
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Redemption in Texas
For the past month, I’ve been stacking cannon balls in my mind, ready to fire salvos of accusation at the state of Texas. Although I’ve resisted the comparison, I couldn’t ignore the similarities between the storming of the Branch Davidian community near Waco and the raid on the FLDS community near Eldorado. Gratefully, fundamentalists did not open rumored stockpiles of munitions (if they ever had them) although YFZ residents reported that the Texas Rangers and other lawmen were locked and loaded when they invaded the ranch. But the authorities in the Eldorado raid acted on rumors of child abuse, employing the same justification for intruding on private property as officials did in Waco. And pulsing beneath the surface, the same intent to weed out an unwelcome community before it could take root on the Texas plains. Today I stopped stacking the cannon balls. What a relief! The Texas appellate court decided today that the Department of Family and Protective Services had “legally and factually insufficient” grounds for removing more than four hundred children from their homes on the YFZ Ranch. Now if only Child Protective Services will exercise humility in serving families and children-- rather than an ego-based need to be right—the next step could stabilize the whole situation. Everyone can still win, if CPS plays their cards right. Redemption is at hand!
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LDS and FLDS Are Not the Same!
At a recent dinner party, I sat across from Elita, a single woman (who would have been called an ‘old maid’ in my mother’s generation) who announced that the LDS Church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an American-born worldwide church with 13 million members) and the FLDS Church (the fundamentalist cult of Warren Jeffs fame) are one and the same. After I shut my gaping mouth, I informed Elita that the LDS Church passed a Manifesto outlawing polygamy in 1890, and again in 1904, and that in the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s the LDS Church actually helped the government gather incriminating information against fundamentalists in attempts to stamp out polygamy. “My people really embarrassed the LDS Church, you know. That’s because they’re really very different,” I told her. Elita shook her head before I could finish speaking and told me again that the LDS and FLDS doctrines indicate that they are one and the same. I had been part of both organizations and could not agree with her. In fact, as I told her, I had personally felt the bite of the LDS Church’s attempts to distance itself from polygamy. So I had to ask Elita where she got her information. She didn’t cite sources, but said she knew that Mormons believe that God will assign single women a husband of His choosing in the hereafter.
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Those Lonely Polygamists
I’m wondering what happens to a polygamous patriarch when all his wives are gone. This thought nagged at me right after the raid on Eldorado, as videographers followed the men around their empty houses and gardens, missing their wives and children, fighting tears, and wondering what to do with themselves. What a switch it must have been for these family-besieged men, to have their lives suddenly transformed from being in constant demand to being utterly alone! Of course, some of the fundamentalist men may have enjoyed the break, the intense quiet, the possibility of finishing a shower without a flushed toilet sending frigid water over them, the quiet pleasure of reading a whole passage of scripture from beginning to end without being interrupted once. Some polygamists may actually enjoy their own companionship. But I suspect that most of them felt the echo of silence in their minds and hearts. And maybe in their libidos, too. Which brings up another question: What have they been doing with all the stress in this incredibly tense situation?
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An FLDS Childbirth in Texas
I am imagining the birth of a son to Louisa Bradshaw Jessop in Austin, Texas on May 13, 2008. Since Louisa had been taken into custody, I assume that Texas authorities insisted he be born in a hospital. Perhaps gauging by her ingénue looks—FLDS women don’t usually wear make-up, and polygamous women often appear younger than their years--Child Protective Services maintained that Louisa was only 15 or 16, and deemed her a child bride. Louisa insisted that she was 22, and eventually produced a birth certificate to prove it. Meanwhile, she gave birth in alien circumstances, without the comfort of her parents, her sisterwives, her sisters, and by one (unofficial) account even her husband was denied access. One would suspect that hostile forces surrounded mother and infant, if we’re to gauge CPS protocols described in reports filed by Hill Country caseworkers. Plans to scoop up mother and baby and move them overnight to San Angelo seem particularly insane. (This was thwarted by a writ of habeas corpus filed on behalf of Louisa’s [monogamous] husband Rulan Danial Jessop who is also the baby’s father.) But who on earth would force a mother and child to travel across the state of Texas six hours after giving birth? Surely not those champions of child welfare—Child Protective Services!
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Ripple Effects of the FLDS Raid in Texas
One plural wife in Colorado City told me that she’s reluctant to take an injured child to the hospital since Texas CPS officials released the statistic that forty-one broken bones had been found in over four hundred YFZ children. She’s reluctant to reach out for medical attention for fear that officials would immediately conclude that she had been abusing her children, and that authorities would use the injury as a premise for taking them away from her. I understand her fear, a paranoia only recently overcome in fundamentalist circles. The distrust of mainstream hospitals kept my father, a doctor, very busy doing minor surgery, repairing broken bones, and delivering babies in people’s homes or in his office where they would not have to encounter the labyrinths of established systems.
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What Teens of Polygamy are Really Like
Media outlets want stories about teens who have left the FLDS or other polygamous communities. I can imagine what reporters and producers are thinking based on questions they ask me about my own polygamous background: Did they try to make you marry an old man? How did you escape? How old were you? The scenarios drawn by some people who leave polygamy paint a grim view of teen life. In fact, teens in polygamous communities receive protection that teens in mainstream communities do not: protection from suicide web sites and heavy metal suggestions about self-mutilation, protection from drug abuse and various enticements to sell out one’s virtue. Most polygamous communities insist on their teens growing up before marriage. The median age for marriage in the group where I grew up was twenty-one. Salacious stories are hard to come by in such a setting. No thirteen year olds getting pregnant there unless they’re sneaking out the bedroom window to meet their boyfriends.
