SPLC Hatewatch: Racist cult leaders accused of ritualistic sex abuse of children in new lawsuit

[inanna]

January 03, 2018

Last week, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints’ (FLDS) “prophet,” Warren Jeffs, along with three other church leaders, were accused in a Utah lawsuit of ritualistic rape of the unnamed plaintiff beginning when she was eight years old

The FLDS is a polygamist, white supremacist, homophobic cult that Jeffs ruled with an iron fist, a splinter group that broke from the mainstream Mormon church when it abandoned the doctrine of polygamy in the late 19th century. In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center designated the FLDS as a hate group due to Jeffs’ racist, anti-LGBT, misogynistic teachings.

As “prophet,” Jeffs assigned marriages of underage girls to male FLDS members. FLDS members who did not comply with Jeffs’ decrees were separated from their families and lost their homes. Jeffs is serving a life sentence in a Texas prison for raping two of his own child brides, ages 12 and 15, who were among his 78 wives.

The allegations in the new lawsuit go far beyond the child bride practice, though. The plaintiff, now 21 years old, accuses Warren Jeffs, along with his brothers Lyle Jeffs and Seth Jeffs, and Wendell LeRoy Nielsen — all leaders in the FLDS at one time, to varying degrees — along with 20 unnamed John Does, of gathering underage girls and ritualistically raping them while other FLDS members watched and documented the abuse.

...

https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2018/01/03/racist-cult-leaders-accused-ritualistic-sex-abuse-children-new-lawsuit

"Prophet"? Pffft.

[MontanaMama]

1. Doesn't surprise me one bit.

Sick bunch, they are.

[Squinch]

2. When men become all-powerful, as they inevitably become in polygynous societies like this one,

horrible abuse of women and children always results.

[procon]

3. Does religion create child predators, or attract them?

These perverts are found in all religions, but what are the leaders doing to weed out the rapists and protect the people they prey upon?

[Scurrilous]

4. Lock them up!

[SharonAnn]

5. without checks and balances, insular groups of men do bad things

http://www.newsweek.com/catholics-time-break-all-male-club-70645
"Studies show what we intuitively know: without checks and balances, insular groups of men do bad things."

This is shown not only a conservative religious organizations, but recent revelations about this behavior in politics and the media.

The key is "without checks and balances".