We need to identify the real issues in the border towns
 
IN OUR VIEW
The Spectrum
 
As the religious leadership turmoil churns in Colorado City and Hildale, the battling factions and public are losing sight of the real issue at hand, which is not polygamy, but the specter of child abuse and a prevailing mindset that defines the women of this community as chattel that can be assigned from one man to another.

This is not about what consenting adults do or religious freedom, and solutions are not simple.

With members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints feuding over leadership of the sect, church members are being tossed from their homes and families are being scattered. The legal aspects, of course, are that the church owns the property the people have built their homes on, giving them rights to what goes on there and who can reside on that property.

It gets further complicated when legitimate human rights issues are brought forward, such as the charges that the little border community is repressive in its attitudes toward women -- who many church leaders believe are the property of their husbands -- and the sexual abuse of children. It's also very easy for the onlooker to pose the obvious question: Why don't these women and children simply leave the culture? From the inside, however, that is not an easy alternative. People of deep religious conviction are hard-pressed to turn their backs on years of rearing that has created a belief system that, although they may question at times, is nearly impossible to shed.

Fueling the confusion is the two-step coming from the state attorney general's office, which, at first, adamantly stated that criminal charges against FLDS leader Warren Jeffs were imminent, then days later said investigators are awaiting concrete evidence of criminal activity in a community where at least 20 men were excommunicated from the church and their wives and children reassigned to other men.

We're not suggesting a clamp-down on religious beliefs. We do, however, believe the attorney general's office should act quickly at the first hint of child sexual abuse. We believe investigators should look hard at the incidents of welfare fraud that allegedly take place in this community. And we believe that a strong support system should be in place to assist those women and children who desire to break from an environment some have described as captive and repressive.

We also hope that cooler heads prevail in this leadership squabble and that tempers are held in check for a peaceful resolution to this tension-filled crisis in Colorado City and Hildale because, as history shows us, there can often be a terrible price paid for religious fanaticism.
 
TheSpectrum.com
Originally published Sunday, February 1, 2004
 
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