Mormon sympathy for the FLDS

[SoonerCoug]

I think a lot of Mormons have sympathy for the FLDS (including the bad guys), even if it's subconscious sympathy. What do you people think? I could be wrong.

[old_gregg]

I think it's exactly the opposite. Most people view them as giving the LDS church a bad name, and sees the pedophiles as what they are (this is not to imply that all FLDS are pedophiles). Warren Jeffs, et al., are predators and are justifiably viewed as such in my experience.

[myboynoah]

I think SC is right. Family is family.

[Katy Lied]

I agree with SC. I think Mormon's are sympathetic to religions in general, hence Senator Hatch's support of the mosque at ground zero.

[pellegrino]

I kind of agree with everyone here. There are those who are upset at the FLDS and the way the media and everyone else confuses them with mainstream Mormonism, and then there are those who are deeply sympathetic to them and their right to religious freedom. Then there are those who feel both emotions at the same time. For many mainstream Mormons it's a complex issue, particularly if you grew up in proximity to see them up close. Whether or not we feel an affinity to them because of our common origins is uncertain. I tend to think that there are some who do, and others who don't

[wuapinmon]

I'm sympathetic to anyone who has their Constitutional rights stomped on, especially the ability to confront their accusers and defend themselves. Many of those women had their children taken from them without due process; guilt by association.

[Green Monstah]

I've done fairly extensive research on the FLDS for an article I helped to write that was eventually published in the Utah Law Review. I feel no sympathy for Warren Jeffs and several of the other leaders in Short Creek. I feel for the children who were ripped from their families in Texas. I feel for the young girls who have little real choice as to who they marry, and I feel for the young men who are forced out of the community and who take up drugs and prostitution and who are completely shunned by their families.

I don't condemn the people who willingly enter polygamous relationships and practice their religion according to the dictates of their own consciences. I do condemn the seemingly high rate of sexual abuse in that small, insular community. I think that when the church put the kibosh on polygamy, many of the people who remained polygamists were sexual deviants and the result is that in Short Creek there is a legacy of sexual abuse (I personally think a very large % of the men there are not pedophiles/rapists, but the stories I've read are heartbreaking).

The Centennial Park Group (just to the south of Colorado City) has its own issues, but in large part they are able to function and exist in society with less abuse and higher quality of life than their cousins to the North.