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The whole Yearning for Zion case left me creeped out. The feminist in me finds polygamy in general a little creepy, but even more so when young women—girls even—are married off to more powerful older men. The mother in me hates the way they kick out the boys to make the numbers work, and I'm saddened by stories that the children apparently grow up without toys or anything else that might inspire their imagination. But the civil libertarian in me also gets creeped out when the state oversteps its bounds and removes children from loving homes on grounds of child abuse wherein the "abuse," it turns out, is largely having a weird religion.
So this story from the Salt Lake Tribune (via the Drudge Report) brought a smile to my face. The hundreds of children who were taken from the YFZ ranch have been returned to their mothers, but the mothers have been advised not to return to the ranch. They are renting apartments and trying to feed their families, and—contrary to one of the arguments against polygamy, that it increases the welfare roles—the women are trying to make it on their own. So some of them have launched a Web site to sell the modest garb that their sect requires. One of the mothers is quoted in the story thusly: "They accuse us of [relying] on welfare, but that's untrue. We like to be busy and learn to meet our needs—out of ashes growing lilies."
I'm still creeped out by the FLDS, and I probably will stick to Old Navy when I need to stock up on kids' clothes, but I admire the heck out of these women for trying to make a go of it in a way that allows them to be true to themselves.
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Well, we probably won't be seeing those colorful prairie dresses and perfect tresses on the front page of the newspapers again very soon. I've been fascinated by the Yearning for Zion ranch drama, which I—like Dahlia, in her great piece comparing the seizure of children to the warehousing of Guantanamo prisoners—have been all but sure would end badly: the overintrusive state would sabotage itself, and the insular compound would become more insular and defensive than ever. But to judge by news reports of the deal struck yesterday, I'd say, with somewhat mixed feelings, that the monthslong mess may well rate as a victory for the state, and maybe for teen mothers, too-even if it was a legal travesty.
The real goal all along, or so it seems plausible to me, has been a criminal prosecution of male leaders of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints found to have impregnated, and otherwise mistreated, young adolescent girls bound to them in "spiritual marriages." It was a Herculean challenge, given a community so barricaded against the outside world. But a sweeping raid, however unwarranted it was soon judged to be, forced open the doors long enough to gather DNA and other evidence from the women and children necessary to substantiate any charges. What's more, the judge's order yesterday evidently specifies that the criminal investigation go on, and facilitates it by barring sect members from traveling outside Texas. In addition, it subjects sect members to continued scrutiny by Child Protective Services. Already the prospect of such supervision seems to have elicited an avowal that the sect will cease to condone underage marriage. It's enough to make ignoring legal requirements look like good social policy-fitting in its way, I suppose, when dealing with a community based on polygamy.
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