Can't add my own thoughts to this articles in the Guardian, I guess it always pays to take these sorts of things with a grain of salt, but you can't help but relate to this story when you're an ex-dub kiddo...see below
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site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk
The lost boys, thrown out of US sect so that older men can marry more
wives
Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday June 14 2005
The Guardian
Up to 1,000 teenage boys have been separated from their parents and
thrown out of their communities by a polygamous sect to make more young
women available for older men, Utah officials claim.
Many of these "Lost Boys", some as young as 13, have simply been dumped
on the side of the road in Arizona and Utah, by the leaders of the
Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), and told
they will never see their families again or go to heaven.
The 10,000-strong FLDS, which broke away from the Mormon church in 1890
when the mainstream faith disavowed polygamy, believes a man must marry
at least three women to go to heaven. The sect appeared to be in
turmoil yesterday, after its assets were frozen last week and a warrant was
issued in Arizona on Friday for the arrest of its autocratic leader,
Warren Jeffs, for arranging a wedding between an underage girl and a
28-year-old man who was already married.
Mr Jeffs is also being sued by lawyers for six of the Lost Boys for
conspiracy to purge surplus males from the community, and by his nephew,
Brent Jeffs, who accuses him of sexual abuse.
Warren Jeffs' whereabouts yesterday were uncertain, but Utah officials
said they believed he may be hiding in an FLDS compound near Eldorado,
Texas, and they have contacted the Texan authorities.
Some have voiced concern that an attempt to corner the sect leader
could provoke a tragedy like the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian sect in
Waco, Texas.
Jim Hill, an investigator in Utah's attorney general's office, told The
Guardian yesterday: "From everything I've been able to discern about
Warren Jeffs, he is someone who is capable of some very different things.
Whether that includes a mass suicide, I don't know. But I worry about
it all the time."
FLDS officials and the sect's lawyer, Rodney Parker, did not return
calls seeking comment, but have previously argued that the Lost Boys were
exiled from their communities because they were teenage delinquents who
refused to keep the sect's rules.
Mr Hill said although the boys may have been rebellious, their
expulsion had more to do with the ruthless sexual arithmetic of a polygamous
sect.
"Obviously if you're going to have three to one or four to one female
to male marriages, you're going to run out of females. The way of taking
care of it is selectively casting out those you don't want to be in the
religion," the investigator said.
Dave Bills, who runs Smiles for Diversity, a foundation in Salt Lake
City set up by an ex-FLDS member to look after the Lost Boys, said it was
difficult to estimate their numbers because they had been scattered.
But Mr Bills said the figures could be "as low as 400 and as high as
1,000".
"They live every day like it's their last day and they don't care about
anything," Mr Bills said. "They're told they won't have three wives,
and they're doomed. But they all want to go back to their mums."
One of the boys, Gideon Barlow, said he was expelled from a FLDS
community in Colorado City, Arizona, for wearing short-sleeved shirts,
listening to CDs and having a girlfriend. He said his mother rejected him on
orders from the sect's leaders.
"I couldn't see how my mum would let them do what they did to me," he
told the Los Angeles Times. After his expulsion, he attempted to give
her a Mother's Day present but she told him to stay away. "I am dead to
her now," he said.
Joanne Suder, a lawyer representing some of the Lost Boys in a case
against the sect, said there had been "a conspiracy to excommunicate young
boys to change the arithmetic so there are more young girls available
for polygamy."
She said some of the boys were simply driven out of town and dumped on
the side of the road, leaving them traumatised. "I think anyone who
finds themselves ousted from the only environment they ever knew and left
in the middle of nowhere, and then is not allowed to be with their
family and loved ones, and is led to believe that they can no longer go to
heaven, is going to be troubled," Ms Suder told The Guardian.
Polygamy is illegal in the US, but the authorities have been wary of
confronting the FLDS for fear of provoking a siege or inviting political
attacks for religious persecution.
State investigators have also found it hard to persuade FLDS members to
give evidence against Mr Jeffs. However, authorities in Utah and
Arizona have recently increased the pressure on the sect's leader, Last week,
a Utah judge froze FLDS assets, and the attorney's office in Mohave
County, Arizona, charged Mr Jeffs for arranging a marriage between a
28-year-old married and a 16-year-old girl. If convicted he could serve up
to two years in prison.
Mr Jeffs inherited the leadership of the FLDS three years ago after the
death of his father, Rulon. Since then, he has ruled its enclaves on
the Arizona-Utah border, in Texas and Canada with fearsome discipline. At
the age of 49 he has reportedly fathered at least 56 children by 40
wives.
There have been no confirmed sightings of Mr Jeffs for over a year, but
a photograph of a man resembling the sect leader was taken in January
at the FLDS 1,700-acre Texas ranch near Eldorado.
Randy Mankin, the editor of the local newspaper, the Eldorado Success,
said: "People on the ranch don't have contact with the outside world.
Two men only do whatever is necessary to do their business."
What is the FLDS?
The Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints split
off from the Mormon church in 1890, when the mainstream faith disavowed
polygamy.
The sect has communes in Utah, Arizona, Texas and Canada. It is the
biggest polygamous group in the US.
What does the FLDS believe?
Polygamy allows a higher birth rate, increasing the "righteous"
population. No man can go to heaven if he has less than three wives. The sect
believes black people are inferior, the offspring of Cain. It teaches
that America was first colonised by a lost tribe of Israelites and was
visited by Jesus after his resurrection.
Who runs the sect?
Warren Jeffs, 49, inherited the leadership in 2002 after his father,
Rulon, died. He has pursued a hard line against sect members deemed to
fall short of "perfection", and has purged hundreds from the ranks,
mostly men and boys. He is estimated to have 40 wives and 56 children. His
whereabouts are uncertain but he is widely thought to be holed up in the
FLDS compound outside El Dorado, Texas.
Who are the "lost boys"?
Among those purged from the sect are between 400 and 1,000 teenage boys
and young men. The FLDS describes them as delinquents. Utah authorities
say they were thrown out to make more girls available as wives for
older men in the sect.
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