Last night, after the news of the arrest of Warren Jeffs broke, I was alarmed to see that the story wasn’t really being covered by the cable TV news channels. Instead, on Fox News, on MSNBC, and on CNN’s angry-poodle law talk show Nancy Grace, the screen was still being dominated by the JonBenet Ramsey story, and the revelations that Mr. Karr couldn’t have been the killer.
Once the TV news editors find a story that pulls in viewers, they seem to run with it as far as they possibly can. That’s a particular shame when it comes to the JonBenet Ramsey case, which really doesn’t have much relevance for anyone anymore outside those who knew the little girl personally. There is no larger issue, no national interest, that is addressed by recent coverage of the JonBenet Ramsey murder case. The story has become pure news pornography.
The story of Warren Jeffs and the fearful power he exerted over isolated communities through the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is another matter entirely. We may not ourselves live in towns like Colorado City, but we all ought to be concerned with the rise of religious tyrants like Warren Jeffs within the United States.
The crimes of Warren Jeffs should bring about a larger discussion of the use of sex and reproduction as a tool of social control. As Jeff’s abusive techniques show, it isn’t just women and children who are coerced by state control over sex and reproduction. Even the men in these supposedly patriarchal families were terrorized by Jeffs and his henchmen of God.
The abusive, criminal power of Warren Jeffs is also worthy of note because it stretched far beyond the literal walls of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Warren Jeffs, as with his father Rulon before him, was able to extend the power of his church over an entire community. Warren Jeffs mixed Church and State, and the consequences were terrible. Those who say we need more God in government ought to consider what happened to the citizens of Colorado City. Extreme depravity was the result of faith-based government.
Many would retort that the problem with the power of Warren Jeffs was simply that he tried to mix the wrong religion with the government. If the proper religion were established as a force in government, these people would argue, no one would be the worse off. Righteousness would reign.
The trouble with that idea, of course, is that Americans just can’t agree which religion is the proper one. For that matter, an increasing portion of the population contends that religion in general is improper. How can any religious group be allowed to control the government, when so many other Americans disagree with that group’s beliefs.
The sick and twisted tale of the power of Warren Jeffs over the people of Colorado City is relevant, and deserves media attention, because it is really about more than just one cruel man and his victims. The problem with Warren Jeffs is the problem of theocracy, and it isn’t just Warrren Jeffs who is trying to impose theocracy on America. A frightening number of powerful politicians share with the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints the belief that the power of Church should be allowed to overtake the power of State.
There’s a reason that many people, especially those in the right wing media, would prefer that you pay attention to the ten year-old case of a single, anomolous murder. The lesson of the JonBenet Ramsey case is that bad things just happen, and they happen for no reason that anyone can understand. The lesson of the case of Warren Jeffs is much more threatening to the status quo, because it suggests that bad things happen when faith goes too far and religion is allowed to reign without restraint.
Don’t let your attention be captured by the flash of an isolated case of cruelty. Keep your eye on the ball, and follow the story of the larger patterns of cruelty that are enabled and even created by the powerful and popular institutions in which we are being asked to place our trust.
