http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-
lostboys13jun13,0,5219104.story?page=1&coll=la-home-headlines
http://tinyurl.com/c8vls
"ST. GEORGE, Utah — Abandoned by his family, faith and community,
Gideon Barlow arrived here an orphan from another world.
At first, he played the tough guy, aloof and hard. But when no one
was watching, he would cry.
The freckle-faced 17-year-old said he was left to fend for himself
last year after being forced out of Colorado City, Ariz., a town
about 40 miles east of here, just over the 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.
Gideon is one of the "Lost Boys," a group of more than 400 teenagers
— some as young as 13 — who authorities in Utah and Arizona say have
fled or been driven out of the polygamous enclaves of Hildale, Utah,
and Colorado City over the last four years.
His stated offenses: wearing short-sleeved shirts, listening to CDs
and having a girlfriend. Other boys say they were booted out for
going to movies, watching television and staying out past curfew.
Some say they were sometimes given as little as two hours' notice
before being driven to St. George or nearby Hurricane, Utah, and left
like unwanted pets along the road.
Authorities say the teens aren't really being expelled for what they
watch or wear, but rather to reduce competition for women in places
where men can have dozens of wives.
"It's a mathematical thing. If you are marrying all these girls to
one man, what do you do with all the boys?" said Utah Atty. Gen. Mark
Shurtleff, who has had boys in his office crying to see their
mothers. "People have said to me: 'Why don't you prosecute the
parents?' But the kids don't want their parents prosecuted; they want
us to get the No. 1 bad guy — Warren Jeffs. He is chiefly responsible
for kicking out these boys."
The 49-year-old Jeffs is the prophet, or leader, of the
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The FLDS,
as it is known, controls Hildale and Colorado City.
The sect, which broke from the Mormon Church more than a century ago,
has between 10,000 and 15,000 members. It believes in "plural
marriage," that a man must have at least three wives to reach the
highest levels of heaven. The Mormon Church forbids polygamy and
excommunicates those who practice it."
...
""There is a virtual Taliban down there. You tell people this stuff
happens and they don't believe it," said Dan Fischer, a former FLDS
member and dentist living outside Salt Lake City who helps educate
and house the exiled teens. The exodus "has been far more dramatic in
the last year.""
...
"Gideon was staying with friends in St. George when the Glausers
heard of his plight from a woman sympathetic to the Lost Boys.
"When Gideon came, he didn't know how to act around people," Stacha
Glauser said. "This was like a foreign country for him."
Like many kids from his hometown, Gideon's poor education left his
vocabulary wanting. When he was hungry, for instance, he asked
Glauser to "build" him something to eat.
"I met his mother once; she was just a baby when she had him,"
Glauser said. "I told her she had a really wonderful son. She said
she did the best she could, and that was it.""
...
"The spiritual heart of the church lies in Hildale and Colorado City,
communities a mile apart with a combined population of about 10,000.
The towns sit at the foot of the remote and majestic Vermillion
Cliffs, a place of red rock isolation. Women walk the streets in
bonnets and trousers under long dresses. Their hair is pinned high on
their heads, often with a braided ponytail hanging in back.
Many of the boys said children didn't attend school past the eighth
grade and that they were taught that blacks were inferior — the
offspring of Cain and doomed to slavery. Such views have earned the
FLDS a hate-group designation by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
The children are told that dinosaurs came from another planet, and
man never walked on the moon. More important, they learn the outside
world is wicked and salvation comes through obedience to the prophet,
who channels God's will."
--
William T Goodall
Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/
If you listen to a UNIX shell, can you hear the C?
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