posted on June 15, 2007 08:22:47 AM new
You don't see the religious conservatives up in arms over this issue where it is actually shown to be harming the children.
COLORADO CITY, Ariz. - In a dusty neighborhood under sheer sandstone cliffs studded with juniper on the Arizona-Utah border, a rare genetic disorder is spreading through polygamous families on a wave of inbreeding.
The twin border communities of Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., have the world’s highest known prevalence of fumarase deficiency, an enzyme irregularity that causes severe mental retardation brought on by cousin marriage, doctors say.
“Arizona has about half the world’s population of known fumarase deficiency patients,” said Dr. Theodore Tarby, a pediatric neurologist who has treated many of the children at Arizona clinics under contracts with the state.
“It exists in a certain percentage of the broader population but once you get a tendency to inbreed you’re inbreeding people who have the gene there, so you markedly increase the risk of developing the condition,” he said.
The community of about 10,000 people, who shun outsiders and are taught to avoid newspapers, television and the Internet, is home to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a sect that broke from the mainstream Mormon church 72 years ago over polygamy.
The group, who wear conservative 19th-century clothing, is led by Warren Jeffs, who was arrested in August and charged as an accomplice to rape for using his authority to order a 14-year-old girl against her wishes to marry and have sex with her 19-year-old cousin.
Doctors in the area declined requests for interviews and families refuse to talk to reporters. But former FLDS members, independent doctors and authorities say the disorder appears to have struck at least 20 children in the past 15 years.
“The disease itself is very rare in the rest of the world,” said Dr. Vinodh Narayanan of Arizona’s St. Joseph’s Hospital & Medical Center and Barrow Neurological Institute. Doctors worldwide had only studied about 10 cases just a decade ago.
“Once you get people within the same community marrying, then the chances grow of having two people carrying the exact same mutation.”
‘Closed door’
Local historian Benjamin Bistline said 75 to 80 percent of people in the area are blood relatives of two men — John Y. Barlow and Joseph Smith Jessop — who founded the sect on the remote desert plateau in the early 1930s.
“There aren’t any new people coming in. It’s a closed door and that gene just keeps getting passed around,” said Bruce Wisan, a court-appointed accountant overseeing a trust of the sect’s assets.
Dr. Leslie Biesecker, chief of the Genetic Disease Research Branch at the National Institutes of Health, said the bad gene could have been introduced after the original founding families settled there. “Any person who joined that community could have brought that mutation with them,” he said.
Tarby, who has recently retired, said he first observed the problem when an FLDS couple came to a Phoenix clinic about 15 years ago with a 10-year-old boy suffering from a degenerative condition. He sent a urine sample to a lab in Colorado for analysis and was stunned by the diagnosis.
Since then, increasing numbers of children in the community have been stricken with the disease, which causes unusual facial features, frequent epileptic seizures, episodes of coma and possibly early death.
In the disorder, brain cells fail to receive enough fuel to grow, multiply and function properly because of a missing enzyme needed to generate energy from food, causing severe mental retardation and muscle control problems.
Tarby met with about 150 FLDS members in November, explaining that the disorder was not caused by tainted drinking water as rumored but by cousin marriage.
But even with that knowledge, it is still hard for people to leave the sect, said Brenda Jensen, 55, who fled the FLDS several years ago and now works for the Utah-based HOPE Organization, which helps women leave.
“If they are willing to marry their cousin, or unwilling but do it anyway, or even in a relationship that is closer than that, it can be very hard for them,” Jensen said.
And local habits are deeply ingrained, authorities say.
“They will tell you if that’s what God wants for you than that’s what you will get,” said Gary Engels, an investigator assigned to Colorado City by the Mohave County attorney’s office. “They don’t think too much about marrying cousins and things like that.”
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on June 15, 2007 10:14:10 AM new
I've been to Colorado City and Hilldale. It's a really strange place. All the houses are really big and have a whole bunch of front doors and there's NOBODY on the streets. Like some kind of twilight zone deal and good luck trying to find a cold beer or a smoke.
Way back in the 50's CC was called Short Creek. A politician out of Phx who had aspirations for the Governor's office, I think he was an attorney general at the time or some sort of prosecutor, plotted a raid in Short Creek and virtually the whole community was rounded up and a big hoopla was made of it. The women and kids were shipped off and held someplace and the state tried to charge the men with bigamy, but all or most all of the cases ended up being dismissed because the marriages were religious only and had no civil weight, therefore it was determined that no laws had been broken. Eventually everybody went back home and they changed the town's name and were largely forgotten about, especially because the whole deal had caused so much embarassment for the state big shots who tried to push it for purely political gain.
There is outrage actually. A lot of the mainstream churches in Phoenix and Tucson are quietly helping to fund the ongoing efforts of rescue organizations that are helping women and kids who have fled the FLDS.
posted on June 15, 2007 11:03:50 AM new
Thanks profe for the background information.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on June 17, 2007 01:41:02 PM new
So the gummit has to stop people from having 3 husbands or 2 wives, but same-sex marriage, or marrying the family Golden retriever is OK???
posted on June 17, 2007 04:07:38 PM new
If, from the above , you determine that people want to marry their dogs than you really have a reading /logic/comprehension problem....but I think that was always quite obvious.
posted on June 17, 2007 07:41:18 PM new
Well hey....the liberals allow anyone to vote....
Liberals Would Let Dogs Vote
by Terrence Scanlon (More by this author)
Human Events online
Posted: 04/04/2006
How does a dog vote?
It's a question to ponder.Dogs do end up on voter lists from time to time -- one was registered in St. Louis in 2000 -- and I worry that today's polling places are not dog-friendly. Can a dog operate a touch screen election machine? Are owners permitted into the voting booth to help their pets?
Seriously. Nowadays dogs, the deceased, convicted felons, illegal immigrants and imaginary people are registered to vote. This shouldn't be. But to hear some liberal groups, any rules and restrictions on the franchise are intolerable.
"While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation": "What would a Democrat president have done at that point?"
"Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack."
posted on June 17, 2007 09:11:29 PM new
News flash - marrying a dog or having sex with it is not the cause of giving birth to a child that is retarded or physically disabled because of a limited gene pool.... it's not the dog, it may be because you also boinked your cousin or father or brother as well as the dog.
posted on June 17, 2007 09:28:33 PM new
Profe: I grew up in Phoenix during the Short Creek issues; most people in Arizona were outraged and shocked that it had been going on, and for so long.
And, sigh, this brings me back to the Mormon thing--again. In the state of Utah, generally, there's been lots of inbreeding over the last 150 years. An anthropologist professor we knew calls Utah "the land of the bridgeless nose."
About 20 years ago I was grocery shopping and ran into the mother of one of my daughter's fellow h.s. seniors. I asked her where Lisa was going to go to college, and she threw up her hands in horror. Said Lisa had won an engineering scholarship to MIT. I said great! She said, oh no; she'll fall in love and marry some boy 'way up there (read: Gentile, non-Mormon) and never come home to live near us. She like so many Mormon parents wanted her children to stay in utah for college, then marry and establish their homes within easy walking or driving distance from the mother ship. I never heard what Lisa did with her scholarship.
One of the worst things about the polygamist community in CC is their discarding the young men whom the old geezers see as competition for the young brides. This has been a huge scandal for a while now. They literally kick them out of the community to fend for themselves; poor hapless boys have never lived out in the real world, and it's terribly hard for them.
_____________________
There is more to life than increasing its speed. --Mahatma Gandhi
posted on June 17, 2007 09:29:15 PM new
I know this is hopeless but linDUH could you PROVE the following statement:
"""But to hear some liberal groups, any rules and restrictions on the franchise are intolerable.""
linduh, you really are losing it. From this ...
""desquirrel
posted on June 17, 2007 01:41:02 PM
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So the gummit has to stop people from having 3 husbands or 2 wives, but same-sex marriage, or marrying the family Golden retriever is OK???
Linda_K
posted on June 17, 2007 01:46:17 PM
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Yep, that's the way I've taken their positions on this subject.""
posted on June 17, 2007 09:39:56 PM new
roadsmith, don't get me wrong as I'm not defending the Colorado City culture or their goofy religion, nor the mainstream Mormon culture either which is more palatable but nonetheless just as odd...but on the face of it I have no problem with a strong culture that wants to find ways to keep it's young people close. That to me is an admirable trait and in these days sadly a nearly impossible goal.
posted on June 17, 2007 09:48:06 PM new
I see your point, profe. But life today in the U.S. means a lot of moving about the country when couples are young, establishing themselves and their careers. The situation in Utah is too many local college grads for the number of jobs these kids want right out of college (high-paying, advancement possibilities etc.). They're torn between leaving the state for awhile and horrifying their parents, or staying and taking their chances on jobs available.
One young man came to me when I was with our chamber of commerce wanting job advice. He'd gone on a mission, married his h.s. sweetheart within a month of getting off the plane to come home, had children right away, finished his college degree (in marketing), and desperately needed to support his family (two kids already with another on the way). He was sort of depending on magic or God or such to bring him "the right job." I told him what Dr. Phil tells jobless people. If you don't HAVE a job, your job is to GET a job, and that means getting up every morning, dressing in job-hunting attire, and hitting the streets. This fellow told me he'd lose stature in his ward if he took something at Dairy Queen just to get started in the job market. It was pitiful. (And he didn't want the wife to work; HER job was to stay home with the children. What a vicious circle.)
_____________________
There is more to life than increasing its speed. --Mahatma Gandhi
posted on June 17, 2007 10:29:29 PM new
Global TV recently had a fascinating documentary about the boys in the community of Bountiful, B.C. which is linked to Colorado City. The children and women are traded back and forth across the border between the two communities and there is currently an RCMP investigation.
Teenage boys are pulled out of school to work for their leader and if they leave the community they face a world that they lack knowledge of as well as a limited education so it's a struggle for them to adapt or find work because they have no one to turn to. If these young men already have a wife and several children it is even more difficult for them to survive because housing costs are so high in the province.
"They grew up in the closed communities of Bountiful, British Columbia and Colorado City, which straddles the Utah-Arizona border. This is a society where a child has no individual identity. It is supplanted by blind obedience. They emerge uneducated, unworldly and unwanted. Some are damned by their religion, denied by their families. Others are still puppets of their religion's powerbrokers, working to support a church that doesn't support them."
posted on June 17, 2007 10:41:45 PM new
And, Kiara, I bet every one of them is sexually molested.
These closed "religious" communities seem to exist only for that.
I remember the story of an Amish girl who was raped by her brother from the time she was a young child. She eventually broke out of the Amish CULT when she was about 15 and told her story. Her brother was jailed. The Amish community's punishment for him was to forbid him to attend church for three weeks...so obviously they don't think child molesting is a big deal. And the girl's pig of a mother KNEW it was happening and did nothing.
Most of these cults are nothing more than sex slave groups.
posted on June 18, 2007 04:22:00 AM new
kiara
posted on June 17, 2007 09:11:29 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
News flash - marrying a dog or having sex with it is not the cause of giving birth to a child that is retarded or physically disabled because of a limited gene pool.... it's not the dog, it may be because you also boinked your cousin or father or brother as well as the dog.
===========================
Don't project YOUR behaviors/actions on me.....that may be why YOU never had children....but it's certainly NOT my behavior, kiara.
You continuing finding new ethical, moral character LOWS just to get your needed attention from me, kiara. It's pretty SICK. Seek help asap.
posted on June 18, 2007 07:23:36 AM new
Linda_K, did you see me mention your name? Because I certainly didn't and it's not always all about you.
The defective gene discussed in this topic is attributed to cousin marriage. The fact that you may have a guilty conscience because you wrote about wanting to have a relationship with your cousin is not my fault. I thought it was silly to bring dogs into the discussion because a woman cannot have a dog's offspring.
And you have no idea whether I have children or not because I would never discuss them here. If it's of any interest to you, if I do have them they are certainly not the product of cousin breeding.
posted on June 18, 2007 07:57:28 AM new
Mingo, I remember watching the story about the Amish girl and how the community blamed her for what had happened. The RCMP investigation into Bountiful has been going on for several years now. It involves the government funding given to the school for inadequate education, the cross-border trading of women and children, underage sex, child labor, etc.
From Religious Tolerance.org
Polygyny in Bountiful, British Columbia, Canada
According to The Economist magazine, and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Fifth Estate TV program, some of the unusual theological beliefs and practices of the FLDS are:
Men must have at least three wives and as many children as possible in order to enter the highest level of heaven, and to have the opportunity to evolve into a God.
A woman's role is to serve a man and be submissive to his needs.
Women who disobey men will have their souls burn in Hell for eternity.
Children are usually required to leave school at the age of 13 or 14.
Their marriage ceremony consists of the woman placing her hand in the man's hand in what is called "the patriarchal grip."
A man is not permitted to have sexual intercourse with one of his wives if she is pregnant.
"If...an older man seduces a 13-year old girl....in his own mind he doesn't commit sexual abuse.....he views himself as married." (Comment by Ron Barton, special investigator of "closed societies," at the Utah State Attorney's Office)
Because all the plural marriages, except perhaps for the first one, are celestial, and not legal unions, FLDS men are not polygamists; they are only adulterers in the eyes of the state. Adultery is not a criminal act. (Comment by former Bishop Winston Blackmore of Bountiful)
Also according to The Economist, critics say that the schools run by the Canadian branch of the FLDS provide minimal education. Boys are trained as farm and forest laborers. Girls are trained to be:
"... young brides and mothers....Women who have fled tell of girls as young as 13 being married off to polygamous men three times their age; of babies born to girls of 14 and 15; and of under-age girls being brought in from similar American communes for arranged marriages and to serve as 'breeding stock'."
According to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation,
"...some men have close to 30 wives and father up to 80 children....teenage girls are married to men old enough to be their grandfathers".
The town of Bountiful was founded in southeastern British Columbia, Canada, during 1947. It is located in the Creston Valley, near Cranbrook and Creston, BC. It is in a rugged area about 40 miles northeast of the junction of the borders of Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia. Its estimated population in 1998 was 600. It has since grown to about 1,000. Almost all residents are the descendants of about six men.
posted on June 18, 2007 08:04:20 AM newWell hey....the liberals allow anyone to vote....
yes that is unfortunate that we allow people with low IQ's like Linda to vote. maybe we should have an IQ test before allowing people to vote.
Wake up Linda, do you honestly think a voting judge will allow a dog to vote. Do you honestly believe these outrageous things actually happen.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on June 18, 2007 08:07:01 AM newSo the gummit has to stop people from having 3 husbands or 2 wives, but same-sex marriage, or marrying the family Golden retriever is OK???
So what biological/physical deformities occur when two men or two women marry? Here is a case where physical problems are being passed on to their children and you are not concerned at all. It would appear you are more concerned about someone marrying his dog - which will never happen - than you are about the well being of children. You really have your priorities mixed up.
Absolute faith has been shown, consistently, to breed intolerance. And intolerance, history teaches us, again and again, begets violence.
---------------------------------- The duty of a patriot in this time and place is to ask questions, to demand answers, to understand where our nation is headed and why. If the answers you get do not suit you, or if they frighten you, or if they anger you, it is your duty as a patriot to dissent. Freedom does not begin with blind acceptance and with a flag. Freedom begins when you say 'No.'
posted on June 18, 2007 08:17:09 AM new
Ohhh, I get it. It's to "protect the children". How come you twits aren't "protecting the children" by sterilizing hemophiliacs,
Taye-Sachs, or sickle cell disease carriers?
Liberals like to fix lots of things. But only "bad" things. But of course, they have to supply the definition of "bad".
Too bad you can't "fix" the Mormons. Since they stay to themselves you can't gather enough support from non-wackos. Too bad it wasn't the same for the Indians.
posted on June 18, 2007 08:22:45 AM new
Logan, when they get to the "marry the dog" part you know they know they just lost the argument
Kiara, most religions, I feel, were formed to subjugate women to the will of men.
In the name of god and religion men can participate in all their dirty little perversions and have all the hard work done for them meanwhile pumping up their own egos.....
this does not just pertain to weird cults like the Amish but applies right up to the Catholic church and the Dope.
posted on June 18, 2007 09:55:49 AM new
sure kiara.....sure.
We're not all as stupid as you are. Nor can your repeated insinuations be ignored.
It's your twisted mind that makes you obsess on that issue.
But hey, IF you'd like us to believe you were giving your "news flash" to anyone other than myself....you fool no one. You're too obvious and too stupid to recogninze that you are.
posted on June 18, 2007 10:22:07 AM new
How is it that the U.S. leadership can justify going into a sovereign nation like Iraq to liberate those poor people enslaved by an evil regime--and not do something about the cult in our very midst? Surely it must be equally okay to reach into those awful communities of our own and help people there?
_____________________
There is more to life than increasing its speed. --Mahatma Gandhi
posted on June 18, 2007 10:35:44 AM new
linduh, I'll explain for you since YOU can't even understand your own posts
No one here has suggested taking away freedom of religion.
However, slavery, child molesting, incest, and polygamy are AGAINST THE LAW.
It can't be called "religion" to escape the FACT that it's breaking the LAW.
Now, I know you have defended child molestation in the past but it really is abhorent to NORMAL people and IS against the law whether you call it child molestation or religion.
posted on June 18, 2007 10:49:44 AM new
You also prove what an idiot you are.
Anyone breaking the law IS already prosecuted IF they're actually found to be breaking the laws.
Period.
No need to condemn an entire religion for the actions of a few. There are these SAME people in the general population. And they TOO are held accountable for ANY illegal action they violate.
Try and get real. This is NOTHING more than a thread to once again BASH Mormons. Just like you progressives do with Christians.
posted on June 18, 2007 11:00:58 AM new
Three more hypocrisies I see coming from the radical left here.
They SAY 'stay out of MY bedroom'. Yet they don't stay out of the bedrooms of others.
They SAY 'live and let live' but they don't allow that for the behaviors of those THEY don't approve of.
They SAY they support our constitution but they don't because they have NO tolerance for those who practice THEIR religion IF they don't approve of it.
Then they continue to BASH Mormons, Christians.....but NEVER those of the muslim faith whose radicals have actually stated time and time again, they're going to convert them to islam or SLIT THEIR THROATS.
Yep....the very confused, radical left, atheists and secular radicals are nothing more than hypocrites and blind to those who DO present a threat to them.
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