The Lost Boys of the FLDS

It’s been just over a month since the government raid on the polygamist Yearning For Zion Ranch in Eldorado, Texas, and I continue to be amazed at the appalling spectacle of the whole thing.

Obviously, the state government has bitten off a lot more than they can chew. The raid was poorly executed, ill-advised in the first place, and possibly illegal. But if I object to the raid at all, it’s because of the sloppy handling, not because I disagree with the state’s decision to investigate. Certainly not because of the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints’ tearjerker Captive FLDS Children website and interviews featuring weeping mothers begging to see their children again.

It’s not that I’m unsympathetic—I never like to see children being taken away from their parents unless there is a darn good reason for it. And if the state felt that the children were in imminent danger of abuse, I think they should have taken the men away and left the women and children at the ranch while they investigated. But as impatient as I feel toward the Texas authorities, I confess that my pity for the FLDS parents is somewhat limited.

They’re working overtime to present themselves as law-abiding citizens who were peacefully practicing their religion before the bad old state came in and tore children and parents apart, but the FLDS was tearing families apart all by themselves long before the YFZ raid, and all in the name of their religion, too.

So, yes: go look at the pictures on their Captive FLDS Children site. Lots of mothers, most of whom were raised in the FLDS faith. Lots of children—boys and girls—also being raised in the faith. But how many FLDS men do you see? Not many, and it’s not just because of the raid.

The FLDS depends on an extremely lopsided male-to-female ratio to achieve the kind of polygamous marriages they’re known for. The YFZ Ranch is utterly typical of the sect. According to a CNN article:

Of the 463 children, 250 are girls and 213 are boys. Children 13 and younger are about evenly split — 197 girls and 196 boys — but there are only 17 boys aged 14 to 17, compared with the 53 girls in that age range.

So what do they do with the extra boys? Kick ‘em out.

It’s a well-documented practice among the FLDS: in order for older men to have their pick of young plural wives, they commonly excommunicate teenage boys—some as young as 13—for ridiculously minor infractions like listening to CDs, wearing short sleeves, or talking to girls. Hundreds of boys are being systematically exiled to a world they know nothing about, convinced they’re going to hell, and never allowed to see their mothers again. Many are so hopeless and confused that they turn to drugs, alcohol, or even self-harm. And small wonder why. Consider a passage from this article:

Abandoned by his family, faith, and community, Gideon Barlow arrived here an orphan from another world.

The freckle-faced 17-year-old said he was left to fend for himself last year after being forced out of Colorado City, Ariz., just over the [Utah] state line.

”I couldn’t see how my mom would let them do what they did to me,” he said.

When he tried to visit her on Mother’s Day, he said, she told him to stay away. When he begged to give her a present, she said she wanted nothing. ”I am dead to her now,” he said.

So, though I’m sure the FLDS women are sincere when they tell the media how badly they want their children back—what mother wouldn’t be?—I’d be a lot more sympathetic if these women were willing to go to the mat to protect their sons. Where are the mothers’ tears for those children?