Patrick Butler: Another Look

Because of recent raids on a religious compound in West Texas, it's too easy to point fingers of derision, but there are plenty of apologies to go around in religion. Many Texans and perhaps most Mormons especially, would feel better if this particular religion story would just go away.

Certainly the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the focus of last week's raids by Texas troopers, would once again welcome the cloak of anonymity. But the situation needs another painful look otherwise nothing will change.

The FLDS are not Mormons. But the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, would not exist if it wasn't for Mormon teaching and practice. Mormons who care to take the painful look know it was their prophet Joseph Smith, who preached, practiced and propagated the teaching of "The Principle of Multiple Marriage" that Mormons carried to and practiced for decades in Utah.

The FLDS today in southern Utah, northern Arizona and now El Dorado point back to Smith and "pure religion" to justify their lifestyle. For Mormons, the FLDS is like looking into a mirror darkly and a past that many can't recognize as their own. But denial only leads to temporary obfuscation of the obvious and the stubborn persistence of a pernicious problem: Oppressive polygamy practiced in the rigid realms of religious sanctions.

Who wouldn't rather look the other way? Who wouldn't rather the Fourth Estate report on the Dalai Lama and protests against the China Olympics, or Sunni and Shia Muslims who squabble over the line of succession from Mohammed, killing each other for control?

Rather turn the focus on the fall on Rev. Wright and his harsh remarks about America, or Catholic priests who prey on youth; or the president of the National Association of Evangelicals involved in gay sex and methamphetamines.

Or a baby born in India with two faces and worshipped as the reincarnation of a goddess; or the divorce rate among American Christians, which is slightly higher than the national average. All these stories have been liberally reported by the press. More are assuredly coming.

If there is precedent in history, however, a return to anonymity for the FLDS is coming soon. After the disastrous 1953 raid on the church in Arizona, where fathers were killed and families ripped apart, there has been a "hands-off" policy toward polygamists.

It was in Cedar City, Utah, in 1989 that I unknowingly stayed at a motel run by FLDS members. A police sergeant warned me where I was staying and told me of the 1953 gunbattle with polygamists.

"No one can stomach that again," he said. "We just keep an eye on them now. This old motel was pretty rundown when they took it over. They worked hard and made it nice. It's safe, but you should know where you are." Pausing, added, "They've done a pretty good job with the place, really."

I spoke softly with the motel's owner, a thin middle-aged mumbling man who said he was also a piano tuner, just trying to make ends meet. His haunted eyes hardly looked like a slave driver's. There were women in braids and pioneer dresses looking at me through curtains, and kids everywhere. The children congregated around our stand-alone motel room, eye-balling our own children and looking hungrily at the hot dogs we were cooking in the kitchenette. They didn't get meat that often, one explained.

Few want to hear anything about polygamists until the next time a cry, a call or a challenge is made by an underage female wanting to break away from religious repression. But society leaves them alone once they're 18; girls are women and can "decide" on their own.

Or can they? Tradition dies a hard death. Ask any Christian who was brought up to believe no other Christian denomination is "saved," but theirs.

Mormons now have the opportunity to evolve, to change and to make good on a problem they are so part of. They could send money - lots of it, to found and finance the many rehabilitation and re-entry programs for those who want to break away from the FLDS. They could help ex-FLDS members live modern lives of education, travel and self-determination.

Mormons could make sure their distant brethren wanting a new life, get the years of reorientation surely needed to survive in the 21st century. Mormons can practically love those who want to leave the FLDS and like prodigal sons and daughters, embrace them in a brave new world of familial brotherhood outside the compounds of religious confusion.

Sure, this is a tough row to hoe. It won't be easy. But there is no group culturally as close to the FLDS as Mormons. Who will reach them? The law? The Latter-day Saints could prove to the world, and themselves, that they have the genuine "Big Love."

Patrick Butler
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