Thursday, April 10, 2008

Some Latter Day Saints


I have been following this story.

Frankly, to me, polygamy is normal. That is the society and community that I have grown up in. And I just don’t feel like rejecting my many half brothers and half sisters because they are not part of the ‘nuclear’ family. Yesterday, was talking to one of my, should I call her, one of my sister’s mothers. She was talking nostalgically of the ‘old days’ when men fathered whole villages of children. The lady who lives with my dad susshed her, quickly. Guess it is because she knows that I am gay. And have no heirs apparent.

But that is not what was happening in Texas.

A religion, a fall back to the old practices, geared towards only one thing- putting the man on a pedestal, and the woman, as a lesser member of the race, on the servitude level. Servant is too good a description. Slave would be more apt.

And this was happening in the Texas, US.

It has been happening in the oil rich countries of the Arab world, for years, and will continue for years. Women are chattel, there. Fact.

For it to happen in the name of religion, is no big deal. That is how we justify innumerable cruelties. For an enclave of slavery to be created in a free country is something which is horrible to imagine. It has happened before. It will happen again. Here is the full story.

The 16-year-old girl whose phone calls led to a raid on a polygamist compound in Texas identified Dale Evans Barlow as the man who she said beat, choked and sexually assaulted her after their "spiritual marriage," according to a court document unsealed Wednesday.

An affidavit says "Sarah," 16, said Dale Evans Barlow, shown in 2005, beat her and forced her to have sex.

The affidavit, signed by Texas Ranger Leslie Brooks Long, also says a former member of the polygamist church told authorities details of the sect's activities -- including a bed inside the group's temple that adult men used to have sex with underage girls immediately after wedding ceremonies.

After authorities raided the ranch late Thursday, the ranger "observed the bed within the temple that had disturbed bed linens and a strand of hair that appears to be from a female head."

The document said the 16-year-old, whom state officials call Sarah, identified her husband as a 49-year-old named Dale Barlow

According to the document released Wednesday, the girl said she has an 8-month-old child and is pregnant again. She said Barlow has beaten her -- once hard enough to break her ribs -- choked her and forced her to have sex with him.

She said another of Barlow's "spiritual wives" would hold her infant child while he beat her.

Long also wrote about seeing a document at the ranch that suggested marriages between one man and more than 20 wives -- all of whom lived in the same house.

Wow, talk about a man’s sexual heaven. Even my grandfathers never had it that good! er, that bad. Seriously, think about it. By virtue of sex, the man is a god. The woman his servant. He can take as many as he is deemed able or to want. He could take them as quickly as and when they started budding into womanhood. And of course they were all taught from birth that this was their station in life. Servitude? No, slavery. Worst, even the minds were enslaved. I think the only Latter Day Saints in this church are the men. Women are too low to be saints?

GayUganda

21 comments:

DeTamble said...

Forced sex is disgusting :-( Yet another reason I don't like religion, despicable acts and claiming them holy in the eyes of God etc. etc.

the antipop said...

i hav tried to follow up on this story and it is just dissgusting. i dont know why any normal people would subscribe to religions that are clearly just self glorifying and satisfying platforms for founders. why did they not learn from what happened with the davidian's clan/cult /watever?

Anonymous said...

"By virtue of sex...", you say. But it isn't, is it. It'a about power, not sex, and the larger, stronger male using sex as a weapon to assert himself.
Women just don't see sex in the same way (well, to a far lesser extent - let's not pretend women don't rape both men and other women on occasion). They also don't see the need to assert themselves in terms of domination the way that men do (again, except for a small minority).
This isn't really religion either: it's a male ego power trip disguised as one. (How many of these cults have been led by women, for example? The Russian one whose members have just left their caves, a month or so ago, another example).
I'm not trying to be a feminist here (I'm male for a start!), but just because I don't have a bra to burn, doesn't mean they don't have valid points about the difference in the sexes. As seen here.

Anonymous said...

Just goes to show you that despotism sometimes cloaks itself as 'organised religion'. Sadly we're still living in a patriachal society where the man is the final arbiter of what's right. Great post

gayuganda said...

Too true deT, Horrible it is. Hell.

antipop, the question why we need religion is one I have failed to find a satisfactory answer for. But it seems we do. And we defend the right for us to believe in whatever we believe to the point of death.

Hi anon,
welcome. Power? Mugabe style? Maybe. Seems as if we have lots and lots of those examples in Africa. The thirst for power. And religions so kindly act as the prop for that kind of thirst.

Wildeyearnings.
Thanks. Wish we could all yearn for freedom that would realy be meaningful. But then, even freedom is a perception.

gug

The 27th Comrade said...

It's not polygamy. It's a few muhfuckers out there. Polygamy is practiced by legions of people, most men (whether or not they'd concede to doing it), and they don't all force under-age girls to to bed.

This is not polygamy. It's some crazy cult. That's all.

@DeTamble: Forced sex is disgusting. So are forced ideals. Or what you call religion. It's easy to say they are disgusting when you don't support them.

gayuganda said...

Hey 27th,
So are forced ideals. Or what you call religion. It's easy to say they are disgusting when you don't support them.

So to you religion is forced ideals Comrade? The opiate of the people are forced ideals?

Dont think they are forced. At a point in time one has to embrace or reject the tenets of his/her religion, more or less consciously. Least I believe so. For children I would say the ideals are 'forced' (think as a communist you would force different ones, isnt it?)

Anyway, food for thought, which ideals are good and proper to be forced on children, and which not? And who is to make that decision?

gug

DeTamble said...

Glad you mentioned that GUG! I was going to but I don't want to get into another argument with him, at least not today.

Anonymous said...

It has been happening in the oil rich countries of the Arab world, for years, and will continue for years.

That's a huge, prejudicial statement.

Anonymous said...

Of course religions rest upon forced idealisms.

Anonymous said...

Anyway, food for thought, which ideals are good and proper to be forced on children, and which not?

Can any ideal forced on children be good? Or do you mean morality?
And what is a child here? A 16 year old? Child has nothing to do with it: the issue is all about consent, surely.

gayuganda said...

wow anon,1,2,3

will we be able to digest all this food for thought?

Yes, the statement is hugely prejudicial. But I find that sometimes political correctness hides things which are truths. And of course I am a human being. So, instead of saying Saudi Arabia, I lump poor Lebanon with Saudi Arabia. Yes, very prejudicial.

religions rest on forced idealisms? Something that i think i wanted 27th to clarify. I am prejudiced, personal history and all that.

ideals forced on children? Oh, yes, I think growing up we do get the ideals of our parents or guardians. Are those forced? Or not?

Is the issue realy consent? Is a 13 year old a child or an adult? Different jurisdictions and all that. But I hear a female of 13 can legally marry under Sharia law, or am I mistaken? In Uganda, the current law is being enforced as 18, which is a problem because, well, traditionaly a girl with budding breasts is a woman!

lots of grey areas, especially given the fact that we all come from differing cultures etc.

gug

Mark Olmsted said...

In a village that practices polygamy, aren't there a lot of leftover men? It might be a logical response to a situation in which there were many girls born than boys, but I don't know anywhere that exists, in fact, it many place female infanticide means quite the opposite.
I'm not against it if it's between consenting ADULTS (hence, hardly the case in Texas) but I just don't get how the math is supposed to work. Sounds like it makes for a lot of disenfranchised and horny young men.

Anonymous said...

the ideals of our parents.

I know what you say, but "ideals" aren't usually what parents pass on: they pass on simply their ways of doing things-- traditions (of belief) are not ideals. As you say about Church and gays, it passes on prejudice, not ideals. Ideals come from ideas, ideas can be thought about...Church clings to what it does not want to think about and review. Interesting that heterosexuals can be polygamous but gays can only be promiscuous. Now there's a thought.

gayuganda said...

Hey Mac, this is how it works

(my opinion, which is very, very biased, since I grew up in town, more or less!)

most of Uganda's population is below 15 years of age. Adults are few compared to children. Now, the older men have the money to pay bride price for the usually much younger wives. So they gather them like prizes. And the younger men, well, they do not have the money, but they have the hormones and the ability to you know what.

So, the wives turn to the younger virile men for sex, and of course are 'married' to the elders of the land. Try to figure out who the children are from.

Was this hilarious story last year in one of the papers. 86 year old man, with 6 wives. The youngest wife 18 years of age. And the husband was very bitter about the men who 'poached' on his women. And, I think he had more than 50 children!

So they marry them, and the younger ones, they sire the children. Very nice solution dont you think???!!!!

gug

Anonymous said...

I know why we need religion. People are too lazy to figure out for themselves what religious texts mean to them. They prefer to have someone study it and then feed it to them. We tend to believe that all men are thinking men (men and women) and they thirst for knowledge and meaning.

Not true.

I don't think polygamy is the problem with the case of the sect in Texas. It is the sexual exploitation of young girls and boys who have not been taught any different who don't know or understand their rights to be whomever they want to be and do whatever they want to do.

The 27th Comrade said...

@GUG: Thanks for pointing us back here. I had forgotten. :o)

Well, forced ideals is something like the West starving entire populations because of some shitty piece of crap they call "democracy".
That's forced ideals. Conversion by the sword, so to speak.

Or if they push the "Accept LGBT!!!" thing with the same militancy, then that's a forced ideal.

Back to the polygamy thing: I think it is really pretentious of us to pretend that polygamists are only those who marry more than one spouse. My friend, Jude, says that if you, say, cheat on your spouse, you're polygamous (only a closet polygamist). :o)

And yes, Uganda's demographics: 50% of the population is under 15 years of age. This is fairly common in Africa - we've had a massive population boom recently, and many things (like AIDS and friends) culled many people who came before.

@Gloriyah: +1. Cosign. I agree. Sweetly-put. :o)
And go and post already!

gayuganda said...

Hey comrade,

you dont want them to push you into not killing us or exiling us onto a desert island, do you?

Sigh!!!!

Thought you were civilised.

Hey, was Karl Max not from the hated west?

DeTamble said...

Oh yes GUG, Karl Marx was most definitely from the hated West!!

The 27th Comrade said...

Karl Marx was from the West, but not of the West. :o)

I don't want them pushing into anything. We are not too stupid to see that it's good or not to kill you and maroon you on islands.
We are smart enough to figure out what to do without help. Do you realise you'd not be anonymous if they hadn't pushed us, in the first place? :o)

The 27th Comrade said...

And no, I ain't civilised. :o) I like me uncivilised.

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