Lyin' for Zion

I am appalled and amazed at how well Warren Jeff's minions have manipulated the press and thus public opinion. And the women, those flocks of pastel flowers, did it all.

First of all, there was the visual image. The long "prairie dresses" bespoke a time we all revere in our Hollywood-ized past, when life was simpler and Maureen O'Hara fought off rascally Indians while Grace Kelly stood by her man. Then there were the sad faces, all duly recorded by cameras and camcorders for public display. "We just want our children back," their spokeswomen said, but their eyes were crafty.

They didn't hide from us, those women. They didn't shun the media. They were in our living rooms every night. We couldn't get away from them. So we started to think about them, to try to understand them, to put ourselves in their klunky shoes--which is right where they wanted us to be.

Of course, the press tripped over its own prime ethic, fairness, and told us so much of the women's side of the story that we started liking them. And we remembered that our Constitution promises freedom of religion. And our hearts told us mothers should not be forced to deliver their children up unto to the sheriff.

At the same time, the women were screwing up the works behind closed doors, refusing to give their last names, trading name tags, exchanging their clothes and their children's clothes, anything to obfuscate their individual identities. Maybe they didn't have any.

And, as was often asked, what about the boys born into the cult? With male/female birthrates usually about equal, how could so many women end up married to one man without leaving many other males wifeless? Uneducated, inexperienced with the world, what happened to the leftovers? Apparently they get tossed out of Zion and often end up hooked on alcohol and drugs. What else do they have in their lives?

But where were the married men, the bulls in the cowpen? Nowhere to be seen. After all, they could be arrested for bigamy if their wives ratted on them. And when DNA fatherhood was proven, the state might find some way to make them support their children themselves rather than registering the kiddos for welfare, as reported by Nancy Grace.

Why did the women do this? For the same reason abused children will move heaven and earth to defend their abusive parents, pleading to return to houses of horror: because the familiar is always more comfortable than change. Besides, abused people often have the idea that they are in control of their situations, that they have somehow caused their own abuse by not being "good" enough. Come on, you've seen it on LAW AND ORDER a jillion times.

Keep up the good fight, Texas. Save the kids. And save the women from themselves, if you can. They can keep the prairie dresses and turn Amish, if they want--the Amish fully cooperate with civil law. Or they can join that Baptist sect the Dugger family exemplifies--seventeen kids, but with just ONE wife.