Jennifer Dobner of the AP has a new article on the Houston Chronicle site today titled Court to consider sale of polygamous church's land. The actual information given to the public was, well, anemic would be an understatement.
You have to wonder where a young, smart reporter can even be found these days.
My rather terse comments were left, naturally.
I left the news business in Mohave County, because nobody there seemed too deeply concerned about the blatant violations of the Constitutional rights of the survivors. Everything done by both Utah and Arizona was designed to completely cover up the abuses of whole groups of people within polygamy, including women, men and children who left or were kicked out.
They were also kicked out of homes they had built themselves. Since the FLDS is a corporation, all members turn their revenues in to the prophet, and he doles it back out in a one man rule set up. No one owns their own home, it belongs to the FLDS corporation's trust. In other words, it is a commune. When a member is kicked out by the FLDS faith, they must leave, and are told to leave their homes behind because they don't have any claim to the trust assets now.
Poof! You are homeless.
So you've got whole groups of people in Short Creek, who when they were kicked out of the FLDS "faith", refused to leave the homes they had built, claiming they still had a right to be covered by the trust, too, even if their religion is now "different" because they have been kicked out of the cult's meetings, or even freely chosen to leave. They have donated almost every penny they ever made to the FLDS corporation, so why weren't they covered as trust participants?
The FLDS corporation is arguing that the FLDS faith has dominance to decide who can have what from the trust.
I suppose we just had a different view of what real "news" was.
It is too bad that years after I left, no one in the national media has bothered to question the survivors about basic human and civil rights violations they endured while still members of the cult.
Why weren't the Feds ever interested in talking to them about these?
Maybe they could have interviewed Utah and Arizona CPS staff or medical staff at hospitals, about how they are always pressured to be extra hush hush about any cases involving the cultural practice of polygamy.
How about nurses in Phoenix who sees a 15 year old girl pregnant, and she comes to her appointment juggling twins she's already had....and she's told to shut up about it because of cultural sensitivity issues?
I'm just wondering how close we are in Texas to becoming the next "culturally sensitive" place for felons to safely practice polygamy.
Hush, hush now.
I suppose I have a different idea of what a real reporter does, too.
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What Texas needs is more "cultural sensitiviy" to those who while they may dress different and their spiritual beliefs may be different than your or mine, are basically decent, kind, and generally good people.
ReplyDeleteAt one time, Texas used to discriminate against blacks and hispanics, they couldn't eat at the same restaurants, employment opportunities severely limited, not allowed to vote...all because it would have been gross to allow them to mingle with "normal" white folk. We now give those of other races equal respect, lets do the same to those whose religious beliefs we either don't understand or don't necessarily agree with.