It seems that there was no coffee in my system yesterday when I posted my inaugural “This Week In Fundamentalism”, because I hit ‘Save’ and went to bed without addressing the actual big story of the week!
Say you’re an extra-fervent member of the sect called Mormonism of the cult called Christianity. Say the good Lord has blessed you with a strong hankerin’ for the righteous boinkin’ of some underaged skirt goodies, but there’s a pesky little thing called “the law” that infringes on your holy mission to put women in their place.
What to do? Well, perhaps if you get together with some like-minded friends, you can buy 1700 acres in Texas and build a compound where you and your community of properly submissive women can till the soil and live apart from society until the end of the world (which is coming very, very soon now, Praise His Glorious Holy Destructiveness, Hallelujah!)
This was exactly the plan acted out by a group of Mormons near Eldorado, Texas. Problem is, that state, while packed with more than its share of whacko fundies, happens to be packed mostly with a different kind of whacko fundie, and those folks don’t take kindly to anyone hornin’ in on their racket (which involves fewer of the “weaker sex” assigned to submit to a given male leader at a time). So when the authorities got a call from one of the girls on the compound who accused an older man of forcing her into marriage and impregnating her at age 15, they sprang into action, raided the compound, and … arrested one person, against whom they may or may not be able to press charges.
On a side note, while I love my wife and enjoy being married, I personally believe that polygamy would be its own punishment.