The XX Factor: What women really think.

Polygamists are Packrats

A post from DoubleX writer Sonia Smith:

What have I learned over the past week watching polygamist Raymond Merril Jessop’s trial in the sleepy west Texas ranching town of Eldorado? Members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints save everything. And now, with the first criminal prosecution of an FLDS leader in Texas, this tendency to hoard every little scrap has come back to bite them. In trying to prove Jessop impregnated his 16-year-old “spiritual” wife in November 2004 at the sect’s Yearning for Zion Ranch, the prosecution is relying heavily on documents seized during last year’s raid. And there are a lot of them ... (Read the rest of this article in DoubleX.)

Polygamists in Court

This week, I am attending the trial of Raymond Merrill Jessop, a member of a polygamous Mormon sect in West Texas, accused of sexually assaulting a child. You will no doubt remember the photos from 2008 of Texas Rangers storming the compound and carting off hundreds of children, from toddlers to teenagers. Since then, the members of Yearning for Zion have allowed select photographers onto the compound to capture innocent moments – feeding babies, slicing bananas and being generally wholesome, as a way to win over public opinion. Today, the trial created another opportunity to contemplate the power of images to manufacture a truth ... (Read more in DoubleX.)