Yearning for Cinema

Carolyn Jessop's autobiographical account of her escape from the same polygamous cult that spawned Yearning for Zion is being made into a movie, thank goodness. The media can present stories that affect people's thinking far more effectively than the courts and law enforcement. And it's only fair--the Fundamentalists did a real number on the press, which did a real number on the public a couple of months ago. And the cult knew exactly how to do it--use their women, as usual; this was a tried and true method: when the cult was raided fifty years ago by the state of Arizona, it used the same tactic to wiggle off the hook.

Make no mistake. These people are not Donnie and Marie. The Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints are not just Amish with polygamy. They are a cult based on the sexual exploitation of women. They believe that in order to become a god in the afterlife, a man must marry as many women as possible and beget as many children as possible. Women can only become goddesses in the afterlife by their husband reaching down a hand to pull them up to heaven (where they will still serve their master). Oh, and apocalypse is near--the White Indians will slay everyone except those who are wearing special underwear, which is why all of Warren Jeff's tribe above the age of diapers wears those longjohns morning, noon, and night--yes, even when having sex.

And the women buy it all. They were born into it and raised in it and know nothing else. Their only salvation is being perfect wives. If they get sick or go insane, it is God's punishment for them not being perfect. If their husband is abusive, it is the wives' fault.

And we thought the Taliban treated women poorly!