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I haven’t written about or even heard much about the FLDS in quite some time now, and have been considering just putting this particular blog on standby, as I haven’t had time to do much with it.  We’ve spent the last few months relcating to a more remote location and I’ve not had time sufficient to pay much attention. 

However, last night I was listening to a lecture from the Witherspoon School of Law & Public Policy 2008, entitled “The State of Parental Rights in Light of the Texas Polygamy Case” (highly recommended), and wondering about the real motivations behind the raid on the FLDS in Eldorado.   It is quite obvious to anyone with half a brain that the health, safety and welfare of those children were NOT the main concern of CPS.  What was, exactly? 

This morning I read at  Occidental Dissent the following:

National Geographic has written a relatively balanced and comprehensive article on the FLDS (Fundamentalist Mormon) communities throughout the American Southwest. They’re explicitly racial, have one of the highest fertility rates in the world, are completely self-sufficient, and leverage media and technology in defense of tradition and family rather than against it. The government and the media are becoming increasingly concerned about and focused on Latter-Day Saint movement for good reason: it poses the last credible threat to their hegemony in the West.

Interesting.  We have with the FLDS a basic tribal structure (RESILIENT COMMUNITY ?), which is ideologically opposed to and operating independently of (to the best of their abilities I’ll assume) the dominant corporate state system, whose religion is secular humanism.  Thus, the FLDS are understandably persecuted by that system.  You may wonder how I say that this is understandable.  I did not say it is right, simply understandable.  I’ll quote Rushdoony here, from his introduction to The Institutes of Biblical Law Vol. I.

Fifth, there can be no tolerance in a law-system for another religion.  Toleration is a device used to introduce a new law-system as a prelude to a new tolerance.  Legal positivism, a humanistic faith, has been savage in it’s hostility to the Biblical law-system and has claimed to be an “open” system.  But Cohen, by no means a Christian, has aptly described the logical positivists as “nihilists” and their faith as “nihilistic absolutism.”  Every law-system must maintain it’s existence by hostility to every other law-system and to alien religious foundations, or else it commits suicide.

I guess I return to the same conclusions I had reached before, but feel as though it is incomplete.  Regardless, the idea of persecution by the state is something for those of us who are rebuilding the tribes from the ground up to strongly consider.  Contingency plans are needed.

However you look at it, all of those FLDS children who were kidnapped by the State of Texas will most probably be scarred for life by the State’s actions, and have most certainly lost their innocence for good.  Even though I do not share their theological perspectives, I still pray for healing, in their hearts and in their homes. 

The British Columbia Supreme Court is expected to consider in 2010 whether laws prohibiting polygamy are in conflict with Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, The Globe and Mail reported Monday. The case will likely affect religious and immigrant groups across Canada that accept polygamy as a way of life, the newspaper said.

Source/Full Story: breitbart.com

The leader of a northern Arizona-based polygamous sect who has been convicted in Utah and is charged in Texas is expected to stand trial in Kingman some time next year.

Sexual conduct occurring through arrangements of unions involving underage girls and male adults is the common theme premise in each of the tri-state prosecutions of Warren Jeffs, leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS).

Hearings in the Arizona case against Jeffs, 53, have occurred months apart in the near two-year period he’s been awaiting trial in the Mohave County jail. That doesn’t mean attorneys aren’t working the case.

“I wouldn’t look at it that way,” said Mohave County attorney Matt Smyth. “I think that the defense in this case is being paid an extraordinary amount of money to turn over every rock and to look at every possible angle in the case, and we’ve actually done more witness interviews in this matter than in any other case I’ve ever been involved in.”

Jeffs does not qualify for indigent representation, and Smith said church donations are financing his defense team that includes Richard Wright of Las Vegas and Mike Piccarreta of Tucson.

Piccarreta agrees that pretrial preparation has been exhaustive. Piccarreta, however, is building a defense that big money flowing from a former FLDS member who is trying to take down the church is possibly fueling the prosecution of Jeffs and civil litigation against the FLDS.

Source/Full Story: Standard-Times

The Arizona Attorney General’s Office says liquidating a property trust set up by a polygamous community may be the best way to save it.

The United Effort Plan Trust owns most of the property in the twin communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., as well as Bountiful, British Columbia, in Canada. The trust was created in 1942 by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a breakaway Mormon group.

In a motion filed with Judge Denise Lindberg in Utah, Arizona officials asked her to start a six-month investigation by the attorney general’s offices of both states. In court papers, officials suggested liquidation might be the best way to safeguard the UEP’s remaining assets.

Utah moved for a takeover four years ago, saying that would protect residents of Hildale, Colorado City and Bountiful from losing their homes because of lawsuits against the FLDS. But there is now new litigation involving the court-appointed trustee and his actions.

Source/Full Story: UPI.com

Winston Blackmore of Bountiful, B.C. has made “one prediction” for the coming year for “responsible persons that deliberately break up families”: “This year will be the beginning of your end.”

Blackmore won a court victory in September when B.C. Supreme Court Judge Sunni Stromberg-Stein threw out a charge of criminal polygamy against him and Jim Oler.

Source/Full Story: The Hook

A jury in Schleicher County, Texas, said polygamist Allan Eugene Keate will spend 33 years in prison for sexually assaulting a child.

The San Angelo (Texas) Standard-Times said the jury’s sentence on Thursday came after the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints member was convicted of assaulting a 15-year-old girl he claimed as his bride.

State prosecutor Angela Goodwin said during Keate’s trial that Keate, 57, and his teenage victim appeared before FLDS prophet Warren Jeffs and the victim was told to remain close with Keate.

“She offered up just a little bit of resistance, and that was squashed,” Goodwin said of the victim, whose identity was not released. Keate also fathered a child with the teenage girl.

The Standard-Times said defense attorney Randy Wilson attempted to portray his client’s actions as those of a man whose religious beliefs allowed him to have multiple wives in service of God.

“Does this sound like a pedophile, or does it sound like a man devoted to God,” Wilson asked the jury during the trial.

Source/Full Story: UPI.com

…
Jeffs’ attorney, Mike Piccarreta, argued to have Superior Court Judge Steven Conn order Sam Brower and Dr. Dan Fischer for another deposition. Brower and Fischer were previously interviewed by Piccarreta but refused to answer certain questions. Brower is a private investigator who has worked with the Mohave County Attorney’s Office. Fischer is a dentist and former member of the FLDS, who Piccarreta says funds an anti-polygamist campaign against his client.

Piccarreta is asking for Brower and Fischer to answer more questions related to conversations between the men and Jeffs’ accusers, Elissa Wall and Suzie Barlow. The defense attorney said Fischer and Diversity Foundation have poured millions of dollars into a campaign against the FLDS church.

The defense is entitled to communication between Wall and Barlow and Hoole & King, a Salt Lake City law firm, through Fischer. Piccarreta also said Brower was an informant for the FBI and would also not talk about conversations with law enforcement in previous interviews.
…
“I smell a rat,” Piccarreta said. “Elissa Wall has received so much money. I want to show that she’s biased against my client.”

Source/Full Story: Mohave Daily News

The attorneys for Warren Steed Jeffs is asking a Mohave County Superior Court judge to set another court hearing to argue whether the prosecutor’s witnesses are experts in religious practices.

Jeffs’ attorney, Mike Piccarreta, is asking Judge Steven Conn to set a hearing to argue whether Carolyn Jessop, Richard Holm and Rebecca Musser are experts on the religious practices of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Jeffs is considered a prophet by the polygamist church in Colorado City, Ariz., and Hildale, Utah.

Jessop and Holm are former members of the FLDS church. Musser was married to Jeffs’ late father, Rulon Jeffs.

“It appears that all of the state’s so-called experts on the practices and beliefs of the FLDS share one common trait, an intense dislike for the FLDS after having left the church,” Piccarreta stated in his motion.

Source/Full Story: Mohave Daily News

Yep, Michigan law calls this polygamy and not bigamy as one might expect.  The sentence is surprisingly lite…I wonder how a male defendant would have fared.  Anyway, here’s another interesting tidbit from the Michigan penal Code for those of you living there:

750.441 Teaching, soliciting and advocating polygamy; felony.
Sec. 441.
Teaching, soliciting and advocating the practice of polygamy—Any person who shall solicit to a polygamous life, or teach polygamy as a correct form of family life, for the purpose of inducing men and women to enter into the practice of polygamy or advocate the doctrine and practice of polygamy, or attempt to persuade any person by private or public discourse to adopt a polygamous life, shall be guilty of a felony.

I moved out of Michigan back in 1991. 

A Bay City woman who pleaded guilty to polygamy will stay in jail for another 16 days.

Macomb County Circuit Judge Peter J. Maceroni on Monday sentenced Martha A. Flemming to 90 days in jail, with credit for 74 days.

Flemming, 43, was still married to Charles Nellett in January when she married Albert Flemming Jr. at a St. Clair Shores church.

Nellett and Flemming wed in 1995.

Martha Flemming returned to Bay County after disappearing in April from the Detroit home she shared with Albert Flemming.

Also missing were Albert Flemming’s car and an $8,000 inheritance check he received from an uncle, St. Clair Shores police have said.

Police arrested Martha Flemming in September in Bay City. She pleaded guilty in October.

Source/Full Story: Bay City News

U.S. District Judge Harry Barnes sentenced self-proclaimed world prophet Tony Alamo to 175 years in a federal prison Friday morning for child sex abuse crimes spanning more than a decade.

“The court believes you should be incarcerated in a federal prison for the rest of your natural life,” Barnes said. “One day you will face a judge with more authority than me. May he have mercy on your soul.” Barnes also ordered a fine of $250,000.

Before pronouncing sentence the court heard from three of the five Jane Does who testified at Alamo’s criminal trial in July that they’d been taken as brides as children and taken across state lines so Alamo could have sex with them if he chose. Alamo, 75, will remain in a jail in downtown Texarkana until a restitution hearing set for January that will determine what Alamo must pay his victims as recompense for the physical and psychological damages they’ve suffered.

Alamo has already hired lawyers to appeal his conviction and sentence. See tomorrow’s edition of the Texarkana Gazette for more on the sentencing hearing and what the future holds for Alamo and his ministry.

Source/Full Story: texarkanagazette.com
Technorati Tags: Tony Alamo

After deliberating for more than five hours, a jury decided Tuesday that a member of the Utah-based Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will serve 10 years in prison and will also pay an $8,000 fine for child sex assault. Raymond Jessop, 38, was convicted last week of child sex assault for fathering a child with a 16-year-old girl who was a polygamous wife.

Jessop said after the verdict that he was at peace with the decision. Jessop is the first of 12 FLDS members to face criminal charges coming out of last year’s raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch.

Source/Full Story: KSTU
Technorati Tags: FLDS, Raymond Jessop

…
“I’m glad they’re going to trial, and I hope they get what they deserve,” Aldrane Schuchmann, a woman from a ranch near Sonora, said as she at lunch in an Eldorado diner.

“Given the fact that a secret organization has moved in, I object to their religion — I object to a religion that exploits women and children — even though there is freedom of religion,” she said.

Her sister Ruth Espy agreed. “I hope justice is served,” Espy said.

Jan Barton, who works at a grocery store in Eldorado, said that religion was being used as an excuse to break the law.

She watched part of the trial from the gallery.

“I’m just a normal, everyday citizen,” Barton said just outside the courthouse. “Those men are nothing but sexual perverts in the guise of religion.”

Source/Full Story: Standard-Times
Technorati Tags: FLDS

It is never a matter of law vs no law, but has always been a question of whose law:  The law of YHWH or the law of man. 

Let’s get this straight.  The law-giver = the god.  Today, the law-giver to the people is the State.

When people like Carolyn Jessop make a statement such as “God’s laws supersede the laws of man” in the courtroom, naturally this will be taken as a major offense against the State…against the “people.”  People say “ahh hah, he thinks he is above the law!”  It’s a great big nail in the coffin, so to speak, of Raymond Jessop.  That’s why she is saying it.  Because the State is the “god” and “law-giver” of the people, and as such cannot tolerate an opposing law-system, such as that which is declared by YHWH in the Holy Scriptuires.  To do so would be suicidal for the State.  Ironically, Christians today don’t see that the same principle applies to them.  Hmmm…

You will find the mass of Churchianity to be in complete agreement with Carolyn Jessop and those of her ilk on this matter of polygamy, because they themselves have rejected the laws and precepts and judgements of YHWH long ago, and instead worked hard to help fashion a new law-giver, in their own image.  Result?  The State.  They might say to themselves that “we are to follow the law of man unless it conflicts with the law of God”, but fortunately for them it never quite becomes an issue because there are never any real conflicts.  Don’t you find that a bit odd?  I do.

Indeed, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked…”  and the State reflects this perfectly.  The people/State, war against the Word of YHWH and his people.  By and large they have been successful…only a remnant remains.  Praise be to YHWH!

A jury that convicted a member of the Utah-based FLDS Church will begin deliberating his sentence. After a day-long hearing on Monday that included hours of testimony, a judge set closing arguments and deliberations on Tuesday in the case of Raymond Jessop. Jessop, 38, was convicted of child sex assault for fathering a child with a 16-year-old girl who was a polygamous wife. He faces up to 20 years in prison.

The jury is deciding the sentence. On Monday, testimony included an FBI agent, a pair of Texas Rangers who testified about documents, and two former members of the polygamous church. Carolyn Jessop, who was once Raymond Jessop’s step-mother by marriage to his father, testified about her experiences within the FLDS Church.

“Polygamy was a saving principle of God,” she said. “God’s laws supersede the laws of man.”

Source/Full Story: KSTU
Technorati Tags: FLDS, Raymond Jessop

The first polygamist sect member to face criminal trial following last year’s raid at the Yearning For Zion Ranch in West Texas was convicted Thursday of sexually assaulting an underage girl with whom he had a so-called “spiritual marriage.”

Raymond Jessop, 38, didn’t visibly react when the verdict was read after just more than two hours of jury deliberations. Free on bond during trial, he was immediately handcuffed and led to jail. Jurors were expected to return to court Monday to begin deciding his sentence on the child sexual assault conviction. He faces up to 20 years in prison.

Lawyers in the case declined to comment on the verdict Thursday.

Source/Full Story: huffingtonpost.com

Jeffs’ defense attorney Walter Bugden Jr. told the justices that a charge of illegal marriage against Jeffs would have been more appropriate than an accomplice to rape charge because Jeffs never intended for the pair to engage in non-consensual sexual intercourse.

He asked the justices to return to the definitions of the law, arguing that while Jeffs was in a position of special trust, he neither committed a rape nor encouraged Wall’s cousin and husband Allen Steed to do so.

Bugden said that if Steed had gone to Jeffs and told them about their issues and Jeffs had told him to force himself upon his bride, then Jeffs would be guilty, but advising Wall to give herself to her husband “mind, body and soul and obey without question” does not equal encouraging her to engage in non-consensual sex.

He said the jury should have been clearly advised at the time of trial that Jeffs would need to be found guilty of “recklessly encouraging” the rape for the conviction to stand. Instead, Bugden said, his client was convicted because he is seen as an “unpopular religious leader.”

Source/Full Story: Deseret News
Technorati Tags: Warren Jeffs, polygyny