As I looked at the jury I understood instantly what had happened. The men all looked pissed and tired, while the women looked like they had been through Hell. They had puffy eyes, some tears, and a mostly drawn exhausted demeanor.
They looked like they had really fought. I felt bad for them.
As soon as I saw the Rangers let one local reporter out the door, I bolted, too, for the rental car and my cell phone.
I didn't call a reporter. It is not my job to bring anyone the news first. That is the media's job. It is also not my job to provide you with the legal analysis. My job as an activist and an advocate is to provide you with the human perspective.
My first information obligation is to the people who have been victimized, raped and abused by the polygamists culture.
My call was to Flora Jessop. She, more than anyone else, deserved to be the first to know. She escaped when she was a child, got to Utah CPS, was called a liar and sent back for more abuse, at the hands of women this time. Nobody ever listened to her. They called her a "crazy liar" from the start.
Then of course, I have a board to report to. These people need to be the first people I give information to.
I am here as a human rights advocate and anti-polygamy activist to give you the human perspective on this sentence.
For the community members who testified that Mr. Jessop was a hard worker, a good father and honest business man, because you enjoyed a profitable business deal with him, G-d help your souls.
For the witness who testified that you would trust your own children to Mr. Jessop's care, G-d forgive you for your ignorance. Mr. Jessop is never going to be a danger to your children. Mr. Jessop's faith requires him to think of your children as corrupt, defiled, impure and definitely not "delightfully whitesome" enough.
Mr. Jessop is only a danger to little girls raised in his cult, behind the gates of the YFZ. They are all taught from birth to believe they must "Keep Sweet" and be completely obedient, or they will burn forever in Hell.
The boys are taught the very same thing. Then when they reach adolescence they are systematically driven from the city. The mothers allow this to happen to their sons. Some mothers, on their husband or the prophet's command have driven their sons away from home and dumped them personally, to demonstrate their perfect obedience.
Mr. Jessops children are much more likely to hurt your children someday. Once they start dumping the boys and driving them away, then you will have to worry about your children.
These boys are damaged beyond description, ask Brent Jeffs.
I hope Scleicher and Tom Green County don't ever have this kind of problem. One lost boy in Utah demanded his girlfriend have sex with him at a party in front of all his friends. When she refused, he shot her in the head and did it anyway. His defense? He had no concept that females were ever allowed to refuse to obey a male. Shariah law is a nice fit with that. Muslim Shariah law requires a woman to have four male witnesses if she is raped, otherwise it is her fault and she is beaten for being raped.
If a Shariah law court has witnesses, two women count as one man. No one woman can ever testify. She doesn't count alone.
If you decriminalize polygamy by handing out anything but severe penalties for the practice, our Muslim sisters in Houston, Dallas and Austin are going to start coming home to even more extra wives. After all, if you won't prosecute the nice cheese making white folks who live on a compound for the human right's crime, how can you possibly enforce the law inside your major cities?
The eyes of Texas should now be moving to the first full blown Bigamy trial.
It's time to stand up for traditional marriage, all the way around. If you complain about gay marriage, and in any way support these criminals in their right to keep concubines, especially under any freedom of religion argument, then you are a hypocrite and don't really believe in traditional marriage but are only interested in discriminating against people for their sexual preferences.
You either support the protection of traditional marriage or you don't. You can't pick and choose gender roles for exceptions. Polygamists rape little girls. It's what they do. It's what they have to do to keep them in it. The female children must be saddled with offspring before they are developmentally mature enough to make their own decisions. Otherwise, too many women would leave before submitting to the abuse of concubinage.
She must believe it is the only means to her salvation, a refusal would mean burning in eternal Hell, or that she has no right to complain about the abuse and submits out of fear.
No matter how you slice it, this makes victims.
Abuse is not a religion.
To those of the jury who fought so hard, "thank you".
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Very well said!
ReplyDeleteBob
Thanks, Bob. It was hard to say.
ReplyDeleteI was so wrapped up in being disappointed in the sentence, and the possibility of parole in five years that it took me a while to process what had happened.
I wasn't in the courtroom long. I get the same sort of special attention at the security checks that Willie does by the Rangers. I completely understand the necessity of those measures when you have people in polarization on an issue, like this one.
I wanted to be one of the last in, so I could be first out.
Then of course, they were kind enough to make a path for me when I was the first one to bolt from the courtroom, as soon as I saw them let one local reporter out of the door.
I didn't want Flora to read it in an email, or see it on the news. She needed, and deserved to know right away the direction Texas went.
Then the AAAP Board needed to be informed.
Then, all of us who have been at this for years now needed a few days to process what had happened.
That jury was in deliberation for over 5 hours. That means someone was fighting tooth and nail for max, and someone else was fighting for something really light.
The women got us those potential 10 years. If we start writing a letter a year to the parole board, and hit them with hundreds, when he's up for it in 2014, we can keep him in all 10 years.
That's a gift I can thank the women of Schleicher County for today.
Thanks for the effort (an sacrifice) you made to be there in Eldorado. It was important that we have a first-hand report. I think it's a very good sign the jury deliberated so long. To me, it meant they were really debating was justice meant in this case.
ReplyDeleteIn all likelihood, Raymond will not be granted parole; I doubt he will show contrition. If he keeps claiming it was a matter of religious freedom, then he will continue to enjoy the hospitality of the Texas prison system. (God bless Texas!)
They have become seriously concerned that Texas might prosecute some of the FLDS women. That is the only think I can think of to explain their mysterious absence from the entirety of Raymond Jessop's trial.
ReplyDeleteA powerful wife or two showed up but never the usual herd you saw in Utah or Arizona.
The letters for mercy from the parole board will undoubtedly still start rolling in within the five years.
If there are no prosecutions of females by then, I will almost guarantee it.
Bigamy/polygamy is a crime in America. Every last one of them knows it, and has reached a conscious decision to choose their deity, in this case named Warren Jeffs, over an observance of the laws of this nation.
Even if every last one of them started out a victim, at some point she made a conscious decision to become a perpetrator within the cycle. If she teaches her children every single day that they must participate in a felony act of human rights abuse, or burn eternally in hell for it, she should be prosecuted for abuse of a child.
We are a religious nation. We are a people of strong and diverse faiths. We, however, are a nation of laws, not deity. Our laws may have derived from Deity, but they are meant for maintaining earthly order, happiness, peace, freedom, satisfaction, liberty, equality and safety of the individual person.
If we give exceptions to people who use religion as an excuse to break this order, happiness, peace, freedom, satisfaction, liberty, equality, safety of individuals, we are agreeing to free passes for the purpose of abuse of our fellow human beings, in the names of deities that have nothing to do with us, or our true history as a nation at all.
We are a nation of laws.
Just as I am for granting humanitarian amnesty to the U.S. for any woman who fears she will be put into concubinage if she were to return to her country of origin; I am for Amnesty for the female practitioners of the cultural practice of polygamy in America.
A practicing female polygamist who wishes to leave the life, obey the law, and seek protection for herself and her children, while actively cooperating with the proper civil authorities, should not only receive amnesty from prosecution, but should also be automatically awarded custody, unless she is found to be unfit in some way.
This would guarantee every one of them the opportunity to obey the law, get out and away with every single one of their children, get to help and successfully start to break the abuse cycle.
Thank you for your kind words. When I catch myself feeling "sacrificial" I remember who REALLY made the sacrifices. I scroll to the bottom of this page and I look at the field of discarded infants in front of a junk yard. I remember the chill that came over me as I stood there, while the sun peeled back from the rim of the canyon, and it started to get darker.
I remember turning around in that field, trying to imagine I were a child. There was literally no where to run. The place is a natural fortress with one road going through town. There was nothing but sheer desert canyon walls, and nothing but desert in any other direction.
Flora was right. You couldn't run away if you wanted to.