I just finished reading Carolyn Jessop's book about her life in the polygamous FLDS cult. It was a harrowing read. I never imagined it could be as bad as she described it. But it was worse. Polygamy is just one aspect of this Taliban-like controlled life. Women have no rights; not to their children, not to education, and certainly not to their bodies. These fundie Mormons, in my opinion, share a lot in common with radical Muslims. A woman's status is below that of a man and they have no reproductive rights or access to any type of birth control. After reading her book, I was sickened by the hell on Earth she had to endure and for what? So that her jackass, coward of a husband could be lifted up to heaven and then choose whether or not she joined him? Fuck that nonsense. If one believes in God, only he or she or it, should decide if one is lifted up, not some mere mortal. But this isn't about heaven; it's about power and lots of it, on Earth, in the here and now that matters to these men.
Now of course, not all of the men in the cult are power hungry and abusive bastards like Merril Jessop, but most of them are so brainwashed as not being able to see the misdeeds and hypocrisy of the powerful ones like the "Prophet" and his apostles. Warren Jeffs is of course the current prophet, not to mention a sociopath, and "Uncle Rulon" was the prophet before him.
Although life in the cult got progressively more extreme as Warren Jeffs took over for his ailing father, life under Uncle Rulon was repressive as well. Carolyn Jessop writes how the elite in the community engaged in behaviours which are grounds for excommunication like drinking beer and getting plastered. Uncle Rulon was one of them. Later, she writes, "[h]e started bitching about one of his wives who was obese after having sixteen kids, which he felt was a sign of pure rebellion toward him."
Ah, rebellion. The one word that would get a wife to shut up and fall in line. Whatever the husband didn't like about his wives and any trivialities were seen as rebellions it seems. A wife had to be in "harmony" with her husband, meaning she basically needed to be his clone. She had to like what he liked, do what he asked, and even if she did all these things there was always something to accuse her of doing wrong and then telling her she wasn't in harmony, which is a pretty bad thing.
The whole sect- or rather cult- is completely ludicrous and impossible. And those mainstream Mormons who are trying to distance themselves from these fundamentalists are insisting that theirs is a religion. I don't think so. Both are sects of Christianity. And even if both were religions, it wouldn't change the fact that one charlatan, a century and a half ago, invented it and called it some divine revelation. Give me a break. All religions are man made and there is nothing holy or supernatural in any of them. Everybody who is religious is brainwashed to some degree. Why else would children be brought up religiously rather than allowing them to choose when they are older and harder to manipulate? The answer is clear.
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Now of course, not all of the men in the cult are power hungry and abusive bastards like Merril Jessop, but most of them are so brainwashed as not being able to see the misdeeds and hypocrisy of the powerful ones like the "Prophet" and his apostles. Warren Jeffs is of course the current prophet, not to mention a sociopath, and "Uncle Rulon" was the prophet before him.
Although life in the cult got progressively more extreme as Warren Jeffs took over for his ailing father, life under Uncle Rulon was repressive as well. Carolyn Jessop writes how the elite in the community engaged in behaviours which are grounds for excommunication like drinking beer and getting plastered. Uncle Rulon was one of them. Later, she writes, "[h]e started bitching about one of his wives who was obese after having sixteen kids, which he felt was a sign of pure rebellion toward him."
Ah, rebellion. The one word that would get a wife to shut up and fall in line. Whatever the husband didn't like about his wives and any trivialities were seen as rebellions it seems. A wife had to be in "harmony" with her husband, meaning she basically needed to be his clone. She had to like what he liked, do what he asked, and even if she did all these things there was always something to accuse her of doing wrong and then telling her she wasn't in harmony, which is a pretty bad thing.
The whole sect- or rather cult- is completely ludicrous and impossible. And those mainstream Mormons who are trying to distance themselves from these fundamentalists are insisting that theirs is a religion. I don't think so. Both are sects of Christianity. And even if both were religions, it wouldn't change the fact that one charlatan, a century and a half ago, invented it and called it some divine revelation. Give me a break. All religions are man made and there is nothing holy or supernatural in any of them. Everybody who is religious is brainwashed to some degree. Why else would children be brought up religiously rather than allowing them to choose when they are older and harder to manipulate? The answer is clear.
