I am honored to be invited to spend some time with the ranch families, particularly at the 1st year mark of the raid. I will bring a camera and this time I will post some pics from the visit. I will be careful about respecting privacy, because frankly, it's so precious and too often we take it for granted.
As for the Oprah show, I think it was a respectfully done. Oprah did a good job, asking questions and responding with warmth rather than judgment, though clearly she looked as if she didn't really "get it" when she got the answers.
Obviously the explanations of their lives given by ranch members make perfect sense to them, but still might fly over the heads of the American public for whom communal living, polygamy, full body dresses and long-braided hair are either strange or old-fashioned seeming.
I have to laugh when I think of how people wrangle over the FLDS hairstyles. Don't people remember the big hair of the 80s, with bangs sticking straight up or feathered all over? Have we forgotten the mohawk? What about the boxy plaid jackets & jeannie pants?
Styles go in and out and we all look back and see ourselves in those old fads and either gasp or have a good laugh. Why? Because at the time they seemed so cool and chic and now they're just plain embarrassing. In other words, the "majority" pretty much determines what is in style or what is a new fad, and the rest conform in varying degrees. Why do we need our way to be better than what the FLDs have determined is appropriate for them?
The children are SO CUTE! I really liked the segment with the teens in particular. they seemed more comfortable than the adults, but teens generally are more outspoken anywhere, aren't they?
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
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10 comments:
Oprah got played. Why didn't she point out that Betty was lying? It was her 12-year old sister that Warren married...
TXBlues: Do you think that either Betty or Carolyn will refuse to go on the Oprah show in the future?
Have a good time. Travel safely. Take lots of pictures for us.
Mary,
LOL - you are kidding, right? Both would jump at the chance...
Of course, since Richard S. Jessop just confessed to committing Bigamy in Texas on national TV, I don't know how gunshy they might be...
Isn't that what got Tom Green indicted, arrested, tried, convicted, and imprisoned? Weren't his TV interviews played for the jury?
We already know that Texas isn't shy about indicting for Bigamy alone - look at Nielsen who was indicted for Bigamy without any of the allegations of underage marriage or Sexual Assault...
Somehow I don't think that the FLDS really thought this one all the way through.
They can indict and convict Richard without any of the evidence from the raid - based on the words out of his own mouth...
ROFLMAO...
Like I said before Oprah came, if she blasted the FLDS, the haters would say she was brilliant.
If she didn't blast them, she would be brainwashed.
To the bitter end, the lemmings will jump off the cliff and then blame the "Liberal media" for the success of the FLDS to rip Texas a new one.
Have a safe trip and give Maggie and Teresa a special hug for me.
:)) GB
Bill: Thanks!! I was expecting that you would actually be here. I will definitely give hugs! :o)
Strange... In one breath they blast Betty for "Lying"
and in the other, think Richard was stupid for telling Oprah the truth.
I guess by his standards, they should have both lied huh?
TXBlues: Yes, I was teasing you. :o)
Now, I feel very protective of Richard and his family. He did a very risky, gutsy thing by talking on camera which is something I think the media sometimes fail to grasp.
The difference with the Tom Green case is that it was not a clean bigamy case. Tom married underage girls and even though he was charged with "bigamy", it was in conjunction with the charge of rape of a child (for "marrying his wife, Linda, at age 13). Had he not married underage girls, he would not have been charged with bigamy. (The bigamy charge was also complicated by the fact that he was actually not legally married to anyone at the time he was charged; the state "common law" married him to Linda in order to charge him with bigamy for cohabiting with multiple women he considered "wives". He had apparently begun his relationship with Linda when she was 13, as evidenced by the birth certificate of their oldest son, then legally married Linda when she turned the then legal age of consent in UT at that time, 14. They later divorced but remained together, and he legally married a different woman later, and they later divorced as well.)
I believe Richard's "wives" were all adults when they entered into relationships with him. I hope the state of Texas leaves their family alone!
Texas has not taken the same position that Utah has taken with regard to consenting adults so yes, anyone from the ranch who is in polygamy could be at risk for prosecution.
Btw, did you post something here or somewhere else that one of the Texas bigamy cases does not involve a minor?
Mary,
There are some similarities, absent the minor.
First, as you noted, Utah used a common-law marriage to establish a bigamy charge. That has long been the case in Texas - see Burks v. State, 94 S.W. 1040 (Tex. Crim. App. 1906); Hearne v. State, 97 S.W. 1050 (Tex. Crim. App. 1906) rev'd on oth. grounds; and Stevens v. State, 243 S.W.2d 162 (Tex. Crim. App. 1951). Common-law marriage may form the basis for prosecution for Bigamy in Texas, and it has been that way for over a century.
Unless the FLDS are looking for a test case outside of the raid, then they are clearly out of their minds - he confessed to Bigamy on national TV, and this is Texas, not Utah. He'll be indicted...
Wendell Nielsen was indicted for 3 counts of Bigamy, all with consenting adults, no minors involved. That is obviously the test case that many were looking for, but the FLDS is not willing to take the chance on it?
Wendell Loy Nielsen, 68
Three counts of third-degree felony bigamy for taking plural wives in February and June of 2006.
I do believe that this is the case that does not involve a minor.
http://166.70.44.68/blogs/plurallife/2009/03/the-criminal-charges/comment-page-1/#comments
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