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Words cannot possibly convey just how thrilled I am that the diabolical Warren Jeffs is finally being apprehended. Since reading Jon Krakauer's riveting Under the Banner of Heaven last year (read my blog post about it here), I've been haunted by the facts of the shocking, hideous goings-on in the world of the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints. The book mesmerized and frightened me and seeing an expose of Jeffs on some A&E show a while back infuriated me to no end. The man is an absolute monster and has done nothing but terrorize young girls and women in the most repulsive of ways: under the guise of religion. He deserves no less than a lifetime of rotting under the basest of conditions for the way he's destroyed so many lives.
On a positive note, his arrest may signal the demise (however gradual) of the isolated, backwards community his father started years ago. Finally, those thousands of women whom he brainwashed into thinking marriage at 12 was their duty will be free to lead lives of their own, without fear of being beaten for reading a newspaper or for refusing sex with their own fathers, grandfathers and uncles in order to produce more offspring than a feral cat colony.
From the AP: "Elaine Tyler, head of the Utah-based group HOPE, which helps people leave polygamist homes, hailed Jeffs' arrest.... 'He has broken up families. He has married off young girls against their will. It is time he started paying for what he did.'"
Amen, sister! I imagine there are prosecutors chomping at the bit to bring this guy down and I hope they are relentless in pursuing the most severe punishment possible. This is a case I plan to follow very closely.
Posted by ayelet at August 29, 2006 12:28 PMHow can something like that go on for so long without anyone doing anything about it? I am not that familiar with the case, but I find it intriguing that it was allowed to go on for as long as it did.
Unfortunately, there are just as many Warren Jeffs out there still operating. Let's hope this is just the beginning of a nationwide crackdown (wordlwide would be ideal but unrealistic)
Posted by: James at September 1, 2006 08:54 AMI read Under the Banner of Heaven a short few years ago as well - leaving me fixated on all news out of the Utah/Colorado/Canadian/and Mexican bases of the FLDS. The kind of power wielded by these convenient "prophets" is evil and cruel and only possible in the backwaters from which they crawl. Hearing about Jeffs demise is a step forward for these poor women - and the children that grew up under him - either to serve as chattle or to be convinced that being a man means treating women as chattle.
Posted by: Mary Jo at August 29, 2006 05:17 PM