Polygamist Ranch Women Give Today Show Interview, Deny Sexual Abuse Claims

Three of the mothers of hundreds of children who were removed from a polygamist compound in West Texas appeared on the Today Show this morning to discuss their plight and efforts to regain custody of their children. Earlier, the women had accused state officials of tricking them into giving up their children.

The women, with their lawyer present, gave a wide-ranging interview to the Today Show's Meredith Vieira. They described having their children taken from them by authorities, and being placed in temporary shelters. Vieira also questioned them about allegations of the children being sexually abused, and teenage girls being forced to marry men decades older than them. The women denied any charges of sexual abuse, but had difficulty answering Vieira's question about marrying older men. They said that no one is ever "forced" to marry a 50-year-old man, but could not answer Vieira's follow-up about the age at which a girl is allowed to marry in their church.

Watch the Today Show interview below:

Comments

[AnnArky]

This what Men & Religion have done to women for millions of years.

Oh, and on a similar note: The earthly representative of the Devil himself (aka, the Pope) and The Spawn of the Devil (aka President Bush) were seen cavorting in front of a Confederate flag. What total and grand silliness!!

[darcy]

AnnArky, well said!!

[BeamMeUpScotty]

HHS (Welfare) should require a woman to provide her birth certificate and that of her children before she can receive food stamps, etc. In cases where the woman refuses to reveal the father (or doesn't know) paternity tests should be required. Men with 10, 20, 30 wives are defrauding the federal government (you and me) by making us pay to feed their children while freaks like Warren Jeffs are millionaires.

[guntotinganglion]

Whoa...these women need to find a hair stylist from the 20th century...then they'll only be a century behind. This whole story is just creepy. This is religiously sanctified pedophilia, plain and simple. Wizened old men molesting young girls...makes my skin crawl.

This all seems to validate the movie "Idiocracy"...the dumb shall inherit the Earth.

[BushBites]

Wizened old men molesting young girls...

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That's the Republican Party platform.

[Trittydi]

Don't forget the nubile male pages and other young men.

Republican Offenders ~
http://www.republicanoffenders.com/

Stop Republican Pedophilia ~
http://www.armchairsubversive.org/
*

[ghostsofamerica]

And so, I bring to you, the only (and therefore most comprehensive) article on what is up with Fundamentalist Mormon Style. (hattip to living section of huffpo)


http://www.sltrib.com/ci_8908641

COSTUME IS CONTROL IN POLYGAMY, by Rebecca Walsh

"...In elaborate polygamy fantasyland, the idea of a haircut can keep a sheltered wife in line.
When the elders of YFZ Ranch in Texas tried to quash a 16-year-old bride's rebellion, they warned that the outside world would force her to have sex with "lots of men." Apparently equally important, she would have to cut her hair and wear makeup.



The compound fence isn't the only cage for the women of polygamy. There is also a prison uniform - yards of pink and blue fabric, inches and inches of hair and ugly orthopedic shoes.

.."

.."Clothing and hairstyle distinctions between individual polygamous families and sects could fill an anthropology notebook.

"You can modify people's behavior just by putting them in a certain kind of dress," says Carolyn Jessop, a former spiritual wife of Merrill Jessop, the bishop of the Texas FLDS enclave. "It is a uniform. You have nothing about you that's individual. You're just a part of a whole."



"By dressing the same, you have this solidarity," says Janet Bennion, an anthropology professor at Lyndon State College in Vermont who has studied fundamentalist Mormon polygamists...."







~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

pedophiles. yes.

mind control victims? maybe.


what fascist bushco. wants for most of the usa? probably.

[mabinog]

despotic fiefdom definitely

Bush is looking for something Christo-fascist, more mainstream though, got to have enough popular culture remaining so that consumerism may continue to flourish and grow.

[JScott]

Next on American Idol-'The Stepford Trio'

[MJD615]

HAHAHA...I thought the exact same thing. Stepford Wives reborn again.

[Vr6]

There surely is a better way of determining 'irregularities' than to simply rip mothers and children apart - this state needs to consider it's ways, it hardly seems appropriate in all humanity to act in such a way based on hearsay. There could have been a bit of thought here, not the same old brute force - however misguided they're still human and deserve some sort of compassionate treatment. And not this quasi fascist groove thing!

[lisakaz]

These women have been conditioned to think there is nothing wrong with a 12-14 yr old daughter "marrying" some middle-aged guy. They can't fathom it because they'd have to admit that they were also victims. So they'll just deny everything. That's what their "husbands" tell 'em to do. So how else do you break the cycle of abuse than to take the kids?

[mabinog]

More than that Lisakaz they would have to admit that their religion was wrong and they won't do that.

[ChrisR]

Gee - all these right-wing posters who just hate anyone who's different. Only the men in this community should have been arrested if they were engaging in sex with minors.
How dare the government take the women's children away to be placed in foster homes. Let's discuss who the barbarians are here, okay?

[Ndw]

Um - if a mother is knowingly allowing her daughter to be raped, she's responsible, too. Isn't she? If a community not only allows this abuse, but fosters it, they're ALL responsible. I question why they weren't taken away when the first 11 yr old gave birth.

And I don't see the right-left debate here. I'm very liberal - I think they were slow to take those kids, & it never should have gone on this long. We don't 'hate anyone who's different.' We hate people who abuse children, and who have created a cult of terrifyingly coiffed women who whore out their kids, even having been whored out themselves.

The women are as barbaric as the men, even if they were victims first. Sorry - they're responsible for the children they bring into the world, too. Their vapid, and tearless, eyes are not convincing to me at all. Using your daughter as a meat shield so the old guys stop coming after you is not all that noble.

[sonofsamstone]

Using your daughter as a meat shield so the old guys stop coming after you is not all that noble
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that certainly cuts to the chase LOL

[NelsonR]

That photo epitomizes the adage, "There are all kinds of people who make up the world".
Reminds me of a the three blind mice in drag, turn of the century too.

[Ndw]

Dear God, what is wrong with their voices? Never mind their hair - there is something horribly wrong with them!

[JudgeCrater]

Did anybody check their genetic profile for inbreeding?

[Ndw]

I was just reading about this. Apparently, there are massive issues connected to long-term inbreeding in these cults. And of course, I've lost the links...

This one is painfully detailed.

http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2005-12-29/news/forbidden-fruit/full

[rrafiringa]

Which begs the question, what is considered normal?
I guess nromal is an environment where murder, rape, and such things are commonplace, and made into news on TV.

[sawdustinhershoes]

Normal isn't raising girls to act as whores for a group of old men.

You're just plain gross.

[lvdragonlady]

Did not see the show but an observation would be:
(1) They only speak when spoken to unless addressing the children.
(2) The men control EVERY aspect of their lives, telling them what to wear, what to eat, what to think. All this within the doctrine of 'their' religious' beliefs.
Similiar in many ways to Scientology or the RCC(Roman catholic church), or Jim Jones(for those of you old enough to remember him).
And because the children are married so young, they no NOTHING but what they have been taught and seen, so they do not see anything wrong.
Brainwashing at it's best.......

[Trittydi]

The interviewer asked remarkably stupid and irrelevant questions. Not at all addressing the real issues at the heart of the matter. Instead it's "do you miss your children?" and "do the children understand?" If these women don't understand the issued of abuse - how can they possibly answer these question with any credibility? They can't.

They clearly DO NOT understand the issue of abuse here in-of itself. They themselves are obviously victims and thus part of the self-pepetuating cycle of abuse. So their arguments come down to "we miss our children, believe me when I say this isn't abuse and you have to give them back because they're MY children." That's NOT good enough.

And I'm offended by the lawyer's claim that "enemies" of the church are doing this to them. People of good conscience everywhere are offended on behalf of - and worried about the generational abuse that is in effect here. It should stop somewhere. It might as well be now.
*

[Ndw]

I thought she did a good job of questioning them with the 'how young?' line. Right there, they fall apart.

[Trittydi]

You're right - it was the most interesting part of the interview - and no one answered the question - not even the lawyer. They talked around it - also - It seemed they had difficulty processing any of the questions despite their simplicity . They simply don't have the contextual tools needed to deal with the outside world at all.
*

[Anastasia]

Trittydi,

Nice post. In a symbolic sense, both the women and children have been imprisoned their entire lives. It's seems clear that they have no sense of what is normal, or how the real world operates.

[Trittydi]

Yes. They're now part of the problem.
*

[jojojojojo]

"everything we do is because love our children"

yes, love your children, but don't LOVE your children.....

[hollyo]

Any woman who'd wear that dress is brainwashed alright.

[ImForLogic]

..As opposed to someone who pays 400.00 for a purse just because it says "Coach" on it?

[galaxian]

Wow, an entire community of doormats. Hopefully some of the kids escape alive.

[rbspickles]

These women are pathetic. They can barely speak past a Dick and Jane level. I don't know if anyone can break the mold they're in. I'm sooooo GLAD that my parents were sane. This is crazy. I would like to hear from the men in this compound and see what they have to say.

[NelsonC]

Well they certainly seem to be well versed in PR. I have not seen any of the men of this group in front of a camera.
I imagine that the very genuine sympathy generated by the sight of a mother pleading for her daughter's return would be somewhat undercut by the sight of some dude demading the return of his underage bride.

[Strywever]

More likely their attorneys are well versed in PR. Looks like this church hired 'em some good ones.

[blooddoc]

It is obvious these women have been brainwashed, but a psychological study to identify the how and why might prove interesting. Perhaps the "church elders" are aliens sent down to infiltrate society; more likely they're just horny old men who have found a weak-minded population of women who are easy to subjugate. In any event, the children of these unfortunate liaisons don't deserve to grow up in the shadows of such loonyness, particularly the young girls.

[happytrails]

These horny old men have not "found" a weak-minded population of women, they have created them.
And the sad thing is that they have had the support of the Mormon organization which has wink- winked at them since polygamy was first outlawed. If the authorities in all the states which have been home to these pedophiles had done their jobs, ESPECIALLY Utah, this problem would be much smaller, if not erased.
This is NOT a question of religion. This is a question of civil rights, sexual perversion, sexual and physical abuse, welfare cheating, imprisonment , brain washing, and who knows what else. And those states which have failed to enforce their own laws AGAINST these abuses are to blame as much as the horny old pedophiles.

[mabinog]

These are not horny old men, they are despots, who use their despotism to molest and abuse and excuse it all with God.