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Summarized by Kent Larsen
Is FLDS Church Withdrawing From World?
COLORADO CITY, ARIZONA -- For the past two Sundays Warren Jeffs, First
Counselor in the First Presidency of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS) has called for church members to leave
the public schools and teach their children at home. He has also called for
church members employed as teachers in the schools to quit and for church
members to sever their ties to non-church members, including relatives. The
moves could doom the four public schools in Colorado City and its sister
town, Hilldale, Utah and further isolate the polygamous community from the
outside world.
Jeffs counsel has led church-controlled markets and groceries to refuse to
serve non-members and caused church members to sever even family ties with
non-members. But Colorado City mayor Dan Barlow, who is also an official of
the FLDS Church, says the moves are nothing more than an extension of the
Chruch's past teachings and counsel. "This is not a rash move. The schools
have been reducing enrollment for several years as people have taken on the
responsibility of educating their children."
But former FLDS Church member Ben Bistline, attributes the move to ill will
toward those that left the Church in a recent schism. "The people are pretty
sad. Daughters can't visit mothers. They turn them away. It's all pretty
silly."
Owen Allred of the polygamous United Apostolic Brethren says that even his
relatives in the FLDS Church have been afraid to talk to him, "They are
sticking their necks out every time they talk to me. I'm amazed something
hasn't exploded right in their own ranks. It's really a dictatorship."
Even outsider Ruth A. Huth, a domestic violence counselor with the Utah
Division of Child and Family Services, one of the few outsiders who were
able to talk with those in the FLDS Church, because of her non-judgemental
counsel, says she has now been shut out. "They used to call me. But now
there is silence. Abuse doesn't just go away."
Mike King, special investigator for the Utah Attorney General's office, says
that he has seen this kind of reaction before with other "cults." "It's just
amazing to me that each of these cults are so much alike," says King. "These
same kind of control tactics surface time and time again. It all comes down
to dominion, control and power."
But Mayor Barlow says that is absurd, "Poppycock. That's just idiotic. . . .
There's nothing sinister about this move. It's simply people exercising
their American rights."
Sources:
SOCIETY'S LURES: Is Polygamous Sect Circling The Wagons?
Salt Lake Tribune 3Aug00 N5
By Greg Burton: Salt Lake Tribune
Polygamists Pull Kids From School
Salt Lake Tribune 2Aug00 N5
By Greg Burton: Salt Lake Tribune
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