The comments on this story, so far, are quite discouraging. The good news is that Mr. Heck, a Christian, is showing extraordinary courage in addressing this issue. I'd hope that anyone who follows this blog, or this issue, will visit the American Thinker over the next few days and help enlighten the public on the real issues surrounding the abuse of polygamy.
American Thinker The Polygamists Make Their Move
By Peter Heck The debate over whether or not those practicing homosexuality should be eligible to obtain the legal status of "married" for their same-sex relationships is persistently mischaracterized by activists on both sides as an attempt to redefine marriage. For those opposing such a move, this is most likely an error of ignorance, while for those favoring, it likely is an intentional tactic of misdirection. To be clear, in order to "redefine" anything, there must be an alternative definition being advocated. To this point, no such proposed substitute has emerged.... (Read Full Article)
There's an issue among those of us who oppose polygamy that needs to be addressed. Since the airing of the TLC show "Sister Wives", I have heard from more than one quarter that "I simply refuse to watch the garbage".
I understand. It was hard for me to tune in as well. I had to DVR it, so I could step away and have my fits of indignation. I understand those, and the need for them.
I have watched all 7 episodes of the show, exactly once, and I already have a list of issues, either lies the Browns have told, or obvious problems with their assertions that none of this polygamous behavior is coercive.
If any of you think that the opposition, the Plural Voices group, or the Safety Net Committee, or the governments of Utah and Arizona are skipping the show, or skipping looking at us, their opposition, you are wrong.
The AAAP has an online discussion group where we post empirical medical research done on the affects of polygamy on women and children. And guess who came to the party this week wanting to take a gander at our research? The email address ends in utah.gov.
I know it is hard to look at this stuff, whether because of basic human principle or because all our sensibilities are so offended when we look at it, but that's what we're here for, isn't it?
Believe me, more than once when someone has expressed interest in "what I do", they have told me, "Wow, this stuff is really a bummer, isn't it?"
Yes, it's a bummer. That's why everyone isn't an anti-polygamy activist. It takes someone strong to continue looking right back at evil behavior and to stand your ground and say, "I'm watching YOU!"
I have yet to go back and re-watch the 7 "Sister Wives" episodes. Maybe I'll need a stiff drink or something to get through it. But my point is that in just one viewing I spotted many lies and inconsistencies. I need more eyes willing to watch and ask questions.
Utah is obviously gearing up for a full court press to decriminalize this human blight. They aren't asking for access to the research we've compiled because they don't think it is a threat. They are there to find holes.
Don't you think, as activists, we should be looking back?
Almost fourteen years ago I stood beside a big black hole in the ground and watched them put the only son I will ever have into it. In a moment like that, what happens when you look up to Heaven? C.S. Lewis said it best, " There is no answer. Only the locked door, the iron curtain, the vacuum, absolute zero."
To effectively describe the hole of grief that the mother of a suddenly and senselessly dead child falls into is not impossible. I could describe it for you but it would break your heart. I called it my own personal Holocaust.
The day after I came back home from Texas, and left my son in that hole, when I woke up and went into the bathroom I was confronted with someone I did not know. My hair had turned snow white, overnight. I was 32. That was the last day anyone ever saw my hair again. I sat on the floor of my bathroom in Charleston, Tennessee and proceeded to tear, rip, pull, shave and cut my head until it was gone for good. Gone. When the frenzy, the self attack was over I simply sat there for hours on the floor, keening. And then I spent countless days on the floor of that bathroom after that doing the same. I'm glad I didn't count them.
There is no bottom. People think there is a bottom but there is no such thing. Some people kill themselves rather than continuing to fall deeper in to the indescribable blackness. I understand why.
There is a pain scale doctors use and a pain scale mental health professionals use. The research indicates that the deepest mental suffering caused by grief is withstood, or not depending on their choice, by the mothers of dead children.
I have heard that the worst physical pain is bone pain. The kind of pain that would be described as "excruciating", the kind of pain that will cause a person to lose consciousness.
For a mother to lose a child, especially suddenly, unexpectedly, violently or senselessly is the mental equivalent of someone taking a chainsaw to one of your limbs. But I thought of it as "the great fire".
It took me two years before the free-fall into the blackness finally stopped. And by that time my husband had other interests and my marriage was over, too.
There is no bottom.
"There is no answer. Only the locked door, the iron curtain, the vacuum, absolute zero."
Survival meant becoming something new. I never went back to normal again. I found a new normal but I was never able to go back to being who or what I was before that day in May of 1997 when my son died.
So on November 22 2006, when I stepped into the Baby Land Cemetery in Hildale, Utah, on the same day that Warren Jeffs was having his preliminary hearing in St. George, I wasn't looking at all those dead childrens graves with any measure of lack of understanding for what each of those mothers who left her child in a hole in that junk yard cemetery might have felt.
People have asked me repeatedly why I have dug in like a tick on this whole polygamy issue. It's because I know the lie. It's because when I heard FLDS mothers were generally given 3 days to grieve a dead child, that Warren Jeffs had decreed stillborn children were not to be buried in the cemetery, because they were born without souls and did not need consecrated ground so they were disposed of like dead animals, and I saw for myself a community where 50% of the graves were those of children....well, I didn't need anyone to tell me that there was abuse in Colorado City. The graves spoke for themselves. Each and every one of them was attached, somewhere, to a mother, G-d help her.
I stood in that cemetery surrounded by blood red canyon walls with my friend, Flora, and I looked up, and around, beyond the field of holes full of children and she was right. There was no way out, nowhere to hide. There was nowhere to run.
I didn't need a PhD in psychology to know exactly what kind of carnage the polygamy in Colorado City, Arizona and Hildale, Utah has produced.
I've got credentials. I am a human being. One who has walked through that fire.
Move along folks, they'll tell you there is nothing to see here, nothing wrong.
Do you really believe that?
It's no secret that the stars are falling from the sky The universe exploded 'cause of one man's lie Look, I gotta go, yeah I'm running outta change There's a lot of things if I could I'd rearrange
I have nothing against veal personally. I don't care for it, so I don't eat it, however the veal calves I've met have all been happy as larks; since their entire life consisted of being constantly fed any young cow's dream diet. Miserable veal wouldn't be any good for market, so producers have motivation to take proper care of the animals.
I'm not a member or supporter of PETA, because I happen to think human life has more meaning than an animal's, which they clearly do not, "A pig is a boy is a pig" etc.
No, my mission in life is to concentrate on serving the purpose of improving human life. There are plenty of others, who also don't buy PETA's message, who do care enough about animal life to make it a mission to help protect and improve it.
I am most moved to action when I see the abuse of human beings, especially on such a large scale, like we see in the practice of polygamy.
Keeping human beings like veal in pens is wrong. That is how the women of polygamy are born and raised. When you see the Care Bear colored mothers on TV, nodding their heads and saying, "It's a wonderful life. This is our choice. Oh yes, we are very happy. It is a very pure life".
Is it now? And could we possibly have different definitions of the word "pure"?
Every woman on the YFZ Ranch knew about the child rape of a 12 year old little girl. If they didn't know when she was "married" to Warren Jeffs, all those concubines knew it afterward, when she most likely gave birth to a child, which no doubt was either taken from her at birth or at the time of the 2008 raid.
This child is now one of those "women" on the YFZ who don't believe they are abused.
This little girl thinks it is a wonderful life, her choice, she is happy...and she is pure.
You see, having a man [one you have been raised to believe is a god] in his 50's rape you on a special alter bed in your religion's temple, with the assistance of two more of his older concubines, while they tape recorded the whole episode, and later had every perverted command, and prayer and grunt transcribed on to paper as well...
This, in her world, the world of an FLDS girl child, is a pure life. Being sexually used to breed children for your religion is the epitome of purity.
Raising animals in pens for slaughter is one thing. Raising human beings in them, for the same purpose?
Nobody in Utah or Arizona seems to see any real problem with this.
I consider that a human rights problem and a feminist problem.
For if the government will continue to turn a blind eye to the illegal spread of male patriarchy, which abuses women, what world do you expect to leave for your great grand daughters?
This is an official invitation to help educate government workers on how to supply polygamists with information to help them apply for, and receive taxpayer assistance, without fear of being arrested for breaking Federal Laws against polygamy.
I wonder if any of the leadership in Texas CPS, DFPS, DES, or Health and Human Services have plans to either take advice from the experts listed here, or to actually send attendees to this "culturally guided, balanced approach to Service Provision" conference?
It sounds quite clinically fascinating after all, since it is designed for: "Building Bridges Not Barriers" and promises to teach us "What Social Workers Should Know".
According to the invitation, all our Utah pro-polygamy favorites will be attending, including Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, specifically speaking on the subject of "Making it Safe for Fundamentalists to Receive Social Services".
One has to wonder, now that all the children were sent back even though abuses were identified, if those in charge of the system, which is supposed to protect Texas children, are instead getting in bed with a culture that tolerates and exacerbates the abuse of their human and constitutional rights.
Somebody should ask our governor if he is still sure our child protection system is being led by the right people, for Texas.
On the other hand, I would sure love to see some of the West Texas C.A.S.A. folk I know go to stare these people down through the whole thing, too, lmao!
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