What a terrifying series. Watched 'Keep Sweet, Pray and Obey', the story of Warren Jeffs, the head -- or prophet -- of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) cult. Now serving a measly 10 year sentence for raping children, Jeffs somehow convinced 6,000 people that he was God's representative on earth and that men should hand over their 13-year-old daughters to be married off to old men.
It's sickening.
The few who managed to escape tell horrifying stories of being forced to have sexual relations with depraved geezers, i.e., "husbands", who impregnated them, resulting in many having multiple births by the time they were in their late teens and early twenties. What did the mothers of the children do when their daughters were taken for trafficking? Nothing. Apparently, God speaks to Jeffs and he decides which victim goes where. Briell Decker, featured in the 2018 documentary, tells of finally escaping at 18 when at the time, she was Jeffs' 65th wife! It's all so wrong.
'Sister Wives' has nothing on Jeffs, nonetheless it also makes me cringe -- especially the way the male children are shunned and driven away to lives of despair. We all know what it's all about: Sex, with divinely-ordered plural wives as the excuse. I feel the same about women who are forced to wear the burka, a garment that covers them from head-to-foot lest a man see an inch of skin, become aroused and perhaps forced to do something about it with the woman -- her fault, of course.
When I was teaching at Algonquin, I never understood the hijab either? Young girls were forced to wear it for the sake of modesty, yet they wore tons of makeup, painted their nails and sported ski-high, spiked boots?! How that was a demonstration of modesty always escaped me.
Ah, logic, the pursuit of which always does me in.
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p.s. B and I have both had Covid for the past 10 days. What joy!
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