The gig is up for Warren Jeffs.
ST. GEORGE, Utah (Reuters) – U.S. polygamist leader Warren Jeffs, the self-proclaimed “prophet” of a sect of breakaway Mormons, was sentenced on Tuesday to 10 years to life in prison for having forced a 14-year-old girl to marry her first cousin.The leader of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or FLDS, received five years to life for each of two felony convictions on charges he was an accomplice to rape. The sentences will be served consecutively and a state board of pardons will ultimately determine how much time he spends in prison. (Story.)
The FLDS features all kinds of oddness, including “blood atonement” (“the extrajudicial killings of certain sinners”), “child brides, rabid racism, multiple wives, and a secretive, religious dictator” (that’d be our boy Warren, by the way).
Verily, Jeffs is a barking loon. In fact, in his better moments he might well be a crazier bastard even than the Rev. Fred Phelps.
Some readers might have been heretofore unacquainted with the peculiar wisdom of Mr. Jeffs. So, in order to provide you all with a better understanding of what won’t be roaming the streets loose for the next decade or so, let me provide you with a few snippets (and some downloadable mp3s) from the Book of Warren.
Warren Jeffs on our out-of-control Negro problem:
“Today you can see a black man with a white woman, et cetera. A great evil has happened on this land because the devil knows that if all the people have Negro blood, there will be nobody worthy to have the priesthood.””If you marry a person who has connections with a Negro, you would become cursed.”
Click here to listen to more of Jeffs’ insight into Negroes.
Warren Jeffs on The Beatles (and Negroes):
“And so the manager of the group called in this Negro, homosexual, on drugs, and the Negro taught them how to do it. And what happened then, it went world wide… . So when you enjoy the [rock] beat … you are enjoying the spirit of the black race and that’s what I emphasize to the students. And it is to rock the soul and lead the person to immorality, corruption, to forget their prayers, to forget God. And thus the whole world has partaken of the spirit of the Negro race, accepting their ways.”
Want to hear more on our Beatles problem? Click here.
Warren Jeffs on women, family and marriage:
“You can’t go to heaven and be a god unless you have more than one wife.””I have been instructed that any young man who will not leave our girls alone is to be sent away and not allowed to be among us, even before they destroy the girl.”
So boys who like girls aren’t to be tolerated. Check. For more, click here.
Of course, there’s Warren Jeffs on the queer problem:
“The people grew so evil, the men started to marry the men and the women married the women. This is the worst evil act you can do, next to murder. It is like murder.”
Then there’s the whole End of the World issue, but at least here he offers some hope:
“Today the Lord rules over this people through President Jeffs, yet we’re under the bondage of the gentiles here in America. Soon the Lord will overthrow our nation and the priesthood people will rule over this land because the priesthood people will be the only ones left.”
There’s more, and thanks to the Southern Poverty Law Center for doing the dirty work making it all public (and there’s some more here).
I always like to wrap these kinds of pieces with a tight little barbed zinger. But I’m just a simple country boy, and what am I really going to say to match the world-class crazy coming out of Jeffs’ own mouth? Enjoy the vacation, Warren, and may God reward you with everything you deserve.
Categories: Family/Marriage, Race/Gender, Religion & Philosophy
Classic post:)
Jeff
Hey, Jeffs did all the work for me.
I knew there was a reason I loved the Beatles so much. 😉 All I can say is wop bop a loo bop a lop bam boom….
Thank you for allowing the crazy to speak…
Rock forever. 🙂
thank you for exposing the Beatles problem. seriously, it was about time. 😉
Modern Mormonism has a problem, and the problem is Mormon fundamentalism. I don’t know what the “Book of Mormon,” “”The Pearl of Great Price,” or “The Doctine and Covenants” have to say about homosexuality, but Jeffs’ stand on non-whites, polygamy, and the ultimate triumph over the gentiles (non-Mormons) seems pretty dead on with what I’ve read in excerpts from those books.
The Church of Latter Day Saints, being built on modern prophesy, has a bit more difficulty distancing itself from the pronouncements of Joseph Smith and other prophets than the older religions do.
For further reading, I’d suggest a wonderful read and very chilling book entitled “Under the Banner of Heaven,” by Jon Krakauer.
Someone I know who is non-Mormon but lived in Utah for a while once told me that the present-day LDS church had a habit of collecting old versions of the Book of Mormon whenever one of the church’s leaders had a new “revelation”, and thus limiting (and ideally erasing) access to the history of the church’s beliefs.
Convenient, that…
When Romney started running, I was surprised to hear that evangelicals had a problem with Mormonism. That caught me as much by surprise as Muslim fundamentalism as a threat did the Bush administration.
I don’t think it’s the polgygamy. They’re probably down with that. Can anybody tell me why the ‘gelicals don’t like the Mormons?
Oh, I suspect it’s pretty much the same as always. If the New Testament isn’t the be-all and end-all to everything Jesus had to say and everything Paul had to say to shoehorn Jesus into Greek philosophy, then the fundies are all wrong and the Mormons are right.
Fundies don’t like to entertain the idea that they can be wrong about anything.
JS:
You’re right about the Fundies. The Fundie Christians I know,(and I know quite a few…while quite nice, are very misguided), the Fundie Muslims, and Jews are 100% right about everything. Another thing I’ve noticed about most fundamentalist sects….they treat their women like dirt.
Jeff
Jeff:
I think it’s mostly true about how they treat women, but I do know a few exceptions among the fundie Christians I know. Not many, but a few.
I wonder what we would see if there were such a thing as a fundie Church of the Mother or something. I wonder if they would treat their men badly.