This is going to be a vastly simplified version of events, as I understand them:

The FLDS are a group of people with Mormon restorationist roots who believe in principles espoused early in the history of our movement, such as plural marriage and consecration.  They formed a community with its base in Colorado City, on the Utah/Arizona border in the 1930s.  Their desire to live the Law of Consecration resulted in what became known as the United Effort Plan (UEP), which started as a subsidiary organization of the FLDS church.  Properties and businesses were owned by the UEP and members received trusts to live on and develop.

In 2005, The Attorney General of Utah filed a lawsuit and seized the holdings of the UEP in the FLDS communities of Hildale, Utah; Colorado City, Ariz.; and Bountiful, British Columbia in Canada. It was alleged that Warren Jeffs and other FLDS leaders had mismanaged it, including defaulting on a series of civil lawsuits.  An accountant, Bruce Wisan, was appointed to act as special fiduciary of the trust, with its estimated $100 million in assets.

First of all, I don’t understand the legal process that could seize control of this arrangement when the majority of its members wish to continue their involvement in the United Order.  Judge Denise P. Lindberg has stated in a recent ruling that because the trust is being used illegally, “to promote polygamy,” that distributing the land to the FLDS church is invalid and violates basic trust law.  Fundamentalist supporters make this argument:

“If a trust is declared invalid, shouldn’t it simply be dissolved and the assets revert back to original ownership (or as close to it as possible)? Does the state or any court have the power to absorb private trust assets or give them to other people, based on the fact that the state and/or court do not approve of the beliefs and or practices of the organizers or beneficiaries of said trust?”

Second, Wisan appears very hostile to the aims of the UEP.  Why would this Mormon Stake President be given control over how to manage the assets of several entire communities of people?  It’s been very, very disturbing to read reports of how the trust has been handled since he has become involved.    Perhaps I’m missing something, but of their own free will these people have legally signed their property over to their church.  Now, measures such as the sale of property set aside for a temple, and reforms designed to violate the rights of the FLDS to live their religion are being enacted.  Little notice is being taken of the desires of those who have entered into the trust and whose financial, emotional, and spiritual interests are at stake.

In Lindberg’s ruling, FLDS members and church representatives Willie Jessop, Dan Johnson, Merlin Jessop, Lyle Jeffs and James Oler were prevented from any input in the case involving the United Effort Plan (UEP) Trust.

“It is black letter law that potential beneficiaries of charitable trusts have no right to make claims upon such trusts,” she wrote. “Because the UEP Trust is a charitable trust, the only individuals with legally cognizable interests are the Utah and Arizona Attorneys General as representatives of the community, and the court-designated special fiduciary.”

In this country, we don’t take away an individual’s legal rights because he has had a consensual sexual relationship with a person other than his wife.  If this person prefers to call his relationship a marriage, and connects it with his religious practice, why is there suddenly a concerted effort to deprive him of his rights?

“Principle Voices,” a support group for those involved in fundamentalist Mormon lifestyles, has voiced their opposition to

1) any ruling that deprives polygamists of the right to organize or manage a trust with their own assets.

2) any ruling that declares a trust formed by polygamists as “promoting illegal activities”, “invalid”, un-Constitutional, or “illegal”, simply because the organizers embrace plural marriage.

3) any ruling that deprives the FLDS (or any other polygamists) of the right to access their own assets or their right to self-governance. (By extension, substitute the name of any other group such as the Kingstons or the AUB, etc., in place of FLDS; we oppose any ruling or government action that would deprive any of those communities of their rights.)

4) any ruling or government action that establishes an inequity in the law that distinguishes, and diminishes, the rights of polygamists from the rights of other American citizens.

A group of people sympathetic to these points has gathered to stage a peaceful protest today (Wednesday, July 29), outside the Matheson courthouse in support of these concerns.  Here the court is considering the sale of the several hundred acres of land known as Berry Knoll which has been prophesied as the future site of their temple.   Do you disagree with their points?  Do you feel that the rulings being contemplated in the case of the UEP constitute an inequity in the law?  Do you believe, as I do, that Mormons and other citizens should have an interest in the outcome of these proceedings?

Faith needs reason because faith unchecked by reason can be just as deadly as reason unchecked by faith proved to be in the gulags of Soviet Russia, the Cultural Revolutions of Maoist China, and the killing fields of the Khmer Rouge’s Cambodia.  (Would Stalin, Mao, and Pot have ordered the killings of millions if they had had faith in an afterlife and final judgment?)

We Mormons are certainly not immune to the potential dangers of unquestioning faith.

Brigham Young once said he feared that members of the Church would “settle down in a state of blind self-security, trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in their salvation . . . .” (Journal of Discourses, 9:150 [quoted by James E. Faust, “Continuous Revelation,” Ensign, Nov 1989, 8].) When unconditional confidence in our church leaders is so often hailed as a virtue, one wonders what Brigham had in mind exactly when he warned church members against “trusting their eternal destiny in the hands of their leaders with a reckless confidence that in itself would thwart the purposes of God in [our] salvation”. I wonder, what are “the purposes of God in [our] salvation” that are potentially thwarted by “reckless confidence” in church leaders?

In a similar vein, Brigham taught that we Mormons still have work to do in identifying and rooting out erroneous beliefs held among us. He explained that we receive revelation “line upon line” only to the degree that we have first thrown off “our false traditions and foolish notions”. [1] For me, hearing an LDS Prophet acknowledge that even we Mormons have “false traditions and foolish notions” suggests we have an ongoing obligation to critically evaluate our longstanding doctrines, policies, and practices to determine whether any of them are, in fact, false and foolish.

Of course, the greatest obstacle to identifying our “false traditions and foolish notions” is our own unwillingness to critically examine ourselves. There is no doubt that critical evaluation of our doctrines, policies, and practices is a delicate art in LDS circles, and there are plenty of examples of how not to criticize the Church. However, if done properly, critical evaluation can help us identify the false traditions and foolish notions among us so that we may lay them off, and thereby open our hearts and minds to new revelation from God (the Church’s re-evaluation and abandonment of the pre-1978 priesthood ban being an excellent example). In other words, when done properly, critical evaluation does not tear down the Church, it builds up the Church.

But despite our having successfully cast aside certain false traditions and foolish notions in the past, and despite the scriptural warnings against being lulled into an “all is well in Zion” mentality, there persists a strong resistance to the idea that other false traditions and foolish notions may still exist among us. As a result, when reasoned inquiry suggests that a longstanding doctrine, policy, or practice may be a false tradition or foolish notion that we ought to cast aside, such suggestions are often met with a host of misquotations, misinterpretations, and misapplications of scripture and doctrine that collectively promote the idea that true faith requires us to continue to adhere to the officially established status quo, even if it seems to be erroneous in our reasoned judgment. (Might that be the “reckless confidence” Brigham Young warned us against?) And the problem with that approach is that it can potentially lead people to embrace all manner of falsehood and evil, and in the cleverest manner of all: by convincing people that true faith requires them to ignore their reasoned judgment.

To illustrate my point, I’ve presented a fictional conversation below between an FLDS leader and an FLDS teenage girl. In the discussion below, an FLDS teenage girl is having reasonable doubts about FLDS doctrines, policies, and practices. At every step of the way, her FLDS leader gives her familiar responses designed to reinforce the idea that God is testing her faith by seeing whether she will unconditionally obey her church leaders regardless of her reasonable objections. As you read the conversation below, ask yourself this one question: Should this FLDS teenage girl abandon her reasonable doubts about FLDS doctrines, policies, and practices and exercise unconditional faith in her church leaders? Or should she listen to her inner voice of reason and common sense, and reject the faith propositions that her parents and leaders are attempting to foist upon her?

FLDS LEADER: Susan, I hear rumors your faith in President Jeffs and the Brethren is weakening. What’s going on?

FLDS GIRL: Well, brother Jeppson, I have to be honest, I have been having serious doubts about whether everything President Jeffs and the Brethren are doing is right, and whether everything they’re telling us is true. I feel so confused, and the more I think about what they’re doing and what they’re teaching us, the less sense it all makes to me.

FLDS LEADER: Young lady, God will never give you doubt or confusion. Satan is the author of doubt and confusion. God gives you faith. You need to have faith, nothing wavering. Doubt not.

FLDS GIRL: I’ve heard that before, but I just can’t help having all these questions about whether the things our church leaders are doing are really God’s will.

FLDS LEADER: Be careful, young lady, you shouldn’t be questioning if what our church leaders do and say is right. Follow the Prophet, President Jeffs. Don’t go astray. And be very careful, because questioning the Brethren is the road to personal Apostasy.

FLDS GIRL: What does personal Apostasy mean?

FLDS LEADER: It means rejecting your church leaders, which cuts you off from the one true church and God.

FLDS GIRL: So when you say that questioning our leaders can lead to personal Apostasy, you’re saying that questioning our leaders can lead to disagreeing with our leaders and rejecting them?

FLDS LEADER: That’s right.

FLDS GIRL: But why should we fear disagreeing with our leaders and rejecting them if they are wrong?

FLDS LEADER: Susan, how could you possibly think the Brethren are wrong?

FLDS GIRL: Well, for one, it just seems that so much of what our FLDS leaders do and teach couldn’t possibly be inspired by God.

FLDS LEADER: Well, God’s ways are higher than man’s ways. It doesn’t make sense to you because even God’s foolishness is wiser than the wisdom of men.

FLDS GIRL: I know its not wise to reject God’s ways, but how do I know that what FLDS leaders are saying and doing is God’s way?

FLDS LEADER: Susan, surely you’ve heard that scripture enough times. “Whether by mine own voice or the voice of my servants, it is the same.” There you have it. If our leaders say it, it’s the same as God saying it. If President Jeffs says it, then you can rest assured it is God’s way.

FLDS GIRL: I’m not so sure that’s the correct interpretation of that scripture. I read that scripture as saying if God says something to his servant, and his servant says it to us, then that indirect communication through a servant is the same as God saying it directly to us. In other words, if A says something to B, and B says it to C, then it’s the same as A saying it to C. But that’s quite a different proposition than the idea that everything B says to C must have come from A. That’s just bad logic.

FLDS LEADER: Bad logic? It seems to me you’re using the philosophies of men. And frankly, I don’t know where you get off thinking you have authority to interpret scripture for yourself. FLDS leaders alone have the authority to interpret scripture. And because we are God’s modern-day Prophets, what we say is new scripture, even if it seems to contradict existing scripture.

FLDS GIRL: I’m sorry, but I just can’t buy into that.

FLDS LEADER: You can’t buy into it? Young lady, you need to be humble. Be obedient. Be teachable. Be submissive. Don’t be so prideful and arrogant as to think that you are better able to discern the truth than your leaders who have decades of experience with matters of the Spirit.

FLDS GIRL: I’m sorry, but it just seems ridiculous to me that God would place in the hands of a select few men the ability to discern the truth, and then expect the rest of us to follow them no matter what.

FLDS LEADER: You’ve misunderstood me. I never said that FLDS leaders alone have the ability to discern the truth. You have the ability to know for yourself that FLDS leaders are God’s chosen prophets, seers, and revelators. First you must desire to believe, then you need to pray and ask God in faith, nothing doubting, if what the Brethren tell you is not true, and God will tell you that it is true.

FLDS GIRL: Well, I’ve done that, several times, but I don’t sense God confirming to me so many of the things the FLDS leaders and teaching and doing.

FLDS LEADER: Well, the Holy Spirit can only communicate with you if you have clean hands and a pure heart. Susan, is there any sin or other misdeed in your life that could be preventing you from feeling the whispers of the Holy Spirit?

FLDS GIRL: Sins and misdeeds? I’m sure I have plenty. The Bible teaches us that we have all sinned, and that not one doeth good. The Book of Mormon teaches us that we can’t count all the ways we can offend God. So I’m sure I have many sins.

FLDS LEADER: Well then, now we’re making progress. You need to repent of your sins, and when you’ve fully repented and abandoned all your sinful ways, you’ll be able to feel the Holy Spirit confirming the truthfulness of FLDS teachings. And if you do that and still can’t feel the Holy Spirit confirming the truthfulness of FLDS teachings, then you need to keep repenting until you can.

FLDS GIRL: Maybe I should have been more clear. Although I am sure I have sins, I can assure you that I am not guilty of any serious sins or transgressions. Like Joseph Smith, I can honestly say that “while I frequently fall into many foolish errors and display the weakness of youth, and the foibles of human nature; which, I am sorry to say, lead me into divers temptations, offensive in the sight of God. In making this confession, no one need suppose me guilty of any great or malignant sins.”

FLDS LEADER: Well then, if you are certain your heart is sufficiently pure to receive revelation, then all you need to do is give the Lord more time to give you a testimony. Be patient and exercise faith by doing whatever your leaders tell you to do. And by so doing, over time, maybe even after years or even decades, you will receive a testimony that what they are telling you is true. But don’t abandon the faith of your fathers. Endure to the end.

FLDS GIRL: I’m sorry, but I just can’t spend my whole life obeying orders and believing things that don’t make sense to me, hoping that one day, years or decades down the road, I might finally get a witness of their truthfulness. What if decades go by and that spiritual witness never comes? By the time I realize it was all wrong all along, it will be too late; most of my life will have already gone by.

FLDS LEADER: But you don’t have to worry about that, Susan, because if the Prophet tells you to do something and it’s wrong, and you obey it, then the Lord will only reward you for your faith and will never punish you for it. But don’t worry, because the Lord will never allow President Jeffs to lead us astray in the first place.

FLDS GIRL: I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t make any sense to me that God will reward me for doing something erroneous because I chose to disregard my reason and follow the commandments of men who claimed to be divinely inspired but weren’t. And I understand President Jeffs thinks the Lord will never let him lead us astray, but what if President Jeffs is leading us astray by telling us that he will never lead us astray?

FLDS LEADER: Listen, young lady, you know what the Proverb says: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not to thine own understanding.” Trusting in the Lord means trusting in his chosen prophets instead of relying on your own understanding.

FLDS GIRL: Well, maybe trusting in the Lord means trusting in his prophets, but how do I know the FLDS leaders are God’s chosen prophets in the first place?

FLDS LEADER: I already told you: repent and be clean, desire to believe, then pray in faith, nothing doubting, and if the answer doesn’t come, just keep obeying and doing what they tell you, and in doing everything they tell you to do, eventually you’ll know for yourself that what they say is true.

FLDS GIRL: And what if I’ve done that and I feel the Holy Spirit has told me something that contradicts what the Brethren have said?

FLDS LEADER: That won’t ever happen, because everything the Brethren say comes from the Holy Spirit. Remember: they will never lead us astray.

FLDS GIRL: I hate to say it, but it seems we’re just going around in circles here.

FLDS LEADER: You know, that’s a really contentious thing to say, and I’m getting really concerned by the contentious tone of your remarks. Stop contending with me and the Brethren. Contention is of the Devil.

FLDS GIRL: So let me get this straight: when our Church rejects all the other religions and churches and their leaders and their beliefs, that’s not contention. And when the Brethren tell members they’re wrong and that they need to get in line, that’s not contention either. But when members disagree with the Brethren, that’s contention?

FLDS LEADER: Young lady, I’m sad to say it, but it’s quite apparent to me that you just don’t have a broken heart and a contrite spirit.

FLDS GIRL: With all due respect, I don’t think it has anything to do with that. It’s just that so much of what our FLDS leaders are doing and saying these days seems to just defy plain common sense; it seems so illogical.

FLDS LEADER: But don’t you see, Susan, that’s the whole nature of faith — believing or doing something even if it contradicts your sense of reason! Do you think it made sense to Noah to build an ark when it wasn’t raining? Do you think it made sense to Abraham to have to kill his own son? But Noah and Abraham defied their “common sense”, their “reason”, their “logic”, and they did exactly what the Lord told them to do even though it seemed not to make any sense at the time.

FLDS GIRL: Look, I completely understand why we would need to follow a direct commandment from God like Noah and Abraham received, even if it doesn’t seem to make sense. But isn’t that a very different proposition than the idea that we need to unconditionally follow a man, President Jeffs, even if what he says doesn’t make sense to us? Isn’t that really just asking us to put blind faith in a man?

FLDS LEADER: No, Susan, that’s not asking you to put faith in a man because God is at the head of this FLDS Church. I so testify to you. Unconditionally obeying President Jeffs is not putting your faith in man; it’s putting your faith in God!

FLDS GIRL: Well, I’m sorry, but that just doesn’t make sense to me either. It seems like asking me to unconditionally obey President Jeffs and the Brethren is asking me to put my faith in man.

FLDS LEADER: Susan, I feel impressed to warn you that the eternal fate of your soul is at stake here, so let me get down to the bottom line. Susan, this whole life is really just a test to see if we will do everything the Lord requires of us, yes, even if it contradicts our “logic” and “reason”. And you need to understand that President Jeffs and the Brethren are the only ones on Earth who have the authority to tell us what the Lord requires. So by obeying them, you are demonstrating the faith that God requires of us. And in fact, the more illogical the Brethren’s actions or teachings seem to you, the more faith you are demonstrating to God when you obey them!

FLDS GIRL: So it seems you’re telling me to ignore my sense of reason.

FLDS LEADER: Well, Susan, that’s precisely what true faith requires!

FLDS GIRL: But why would God give us reason and then require us to forsake it?

FLDS LEADER: Well, I guess that’s a question we’re just going to have to wait until the next life to understand.

CONCLUSION

To be clear, the point of the fictional dialogue above is to illustrate how scripture and doctrine can be misinterpreted and misapplied to preach a false version of faith that can be probably found amongst most religions, churches, and denominations — an unquestioning faith; a faith that requires us to ignore reason; a faith that demands unconditional obedience to leaders because of their claimed divine authority. And the problem with that unreasoned faith is that it can lead people to embrace all manner of falsehood and evil by convincing devout believers in any church that the status quo established by their leaders must not be questioned, must not be challenged, must always be right, and must always be followed, no matter how unreasonable it may be.

NOTES:

[1] The full quote is as follows: “[God] would be glad to send angels to communicate further to this people, but there is no room to receive it, consequently, He cannot come and dwell with you. There is a further reason: we are not capacitated to throw off in one day all our traditions, and our prepossessed feelings and notions, but have to do it little by little. It is a gradual process, advancing from one step to another; and as we layoff our false traditions and foolish notions, we receive more and more light, and thus we grow in grace; and if we continue so to grow we shall be prepared eventually to receive the Son of Man, and that is what we are after.” (Journal of Discourses 2:309-318).

What impact will this decision have on LDS temple work? Slow it down? Eventually force temple patrons to bring their own names every time they go to the temple (like was standard practice a century ago)? Jewish groups acting on behalf of Holocaust victims were the first group to stir controversy about this, now the Vatican. The issue is not just the revulsion of these entities at LDS proxy work, but also the increased visibility this gives the practice of LDS temple work every time one of these news stories break. How long will it be before other groups follow this trend and shut down access? What kind of a “backlog” of temple-ready names exists to keep temple work going should the world tell us to leave their ancestors alone?

And how would you feel if the FLDS, say, began doing temple work for YOUR grandparents? Speaking of the FLDS, the Texas appeals court has just ruled the state had no right to seize FLDS children…Discuss either topic!

The underlying assumption in taking 400 children out of their homes is that the lifestyle itself is harmful; invading the temple is a direct challenge to the FLDS religion’s legitimacy.  The total absence of ACLU intervention further indicates that there is no legal basis for protection and that national sympathy is lacking due to illegal polygamous behavior.  If the FLDS women are viewed as victims, it is as complicit victims.  As Alice Walker put it Possessing the Secret of Joy (her book about female genital mutilation), “One tree said to another:  I have seen the axe, and the handle is one of us.”

The responses to the raid have varied greatly.  There are articles praising TX for its bold action to safeguard women and children from a dangerous patriarchal and insular cult.  There are sympathetic posts by LDS who view this action as the Extermination Order II.  There are critics of the LDS who condemn any lack of sympathy on our part as being hypocritical.  There are women of the FLDS baffled as to why they are being persecuted for their religious beliefs, their children taken from them, and their rights stripped.  I would like to explore the shift in approach TX has made, the legal and pragmatic implications of that, and the possible outcomes.

Growing up in the northeast (raised LDS), I had no idea that polygamy was still being practiced by anyone in the US.  I had assured my inquisitive high school friends that it had been done away with almost a hundred years ago.  I was truly shocked to find otherwise when I attended BYU.  My parents are converts, so we have no polygamous ancestry.  The first time I heard the term “polyg,” I thought it was an architectural style (“polyg houses”).  During my first temple recommend interview I had to ask what a “splinter group” was because I had no idea that (aside from the RLDS) there were other groups that had split from LDS.  The idea that anyone would voluntarily practice polygamy if there was any way out of it (e.g. the Official Declaration and it being made illegal) was beyond my comprehension.  My own teenage contemplation of polygamy really went no farther than to wonder whether it was something I could have lived if asked like some of those early church women, a safe enough exercise at a distance of a hundred years.  It was unpalatable, but as theoretical as other unpalatable things like eating a live cockroach or breast feeding.

Although I was initially outraged and chagrined that UT did not more actively prosecute polygamists who are clearly flouting the law, I gained a lot of respect over time for the pragmatic approach UT and AZ have taken.  Texas’ action, while bold, seems excessive; taking over 400 children from their mothers over one anonymous complaint of abuse is overreaching. As a contrast, there are recurring complaints of domestic abuse in some urban low income communities, but they don’t come in and take away all the children in all the neighboring apartments. And they would probably find a lot more abuse if they did.  It seems that people’s rights have been trampled and the innocent are being treated without much concern in a “guilty until proven innocent” approach.  The incident in Texas has been handled differently for several reasons:

1. Texas’ experience with polygamous sects is limited and recent whereas AZ and UT have had long-standing experience with polygamous sects.
2. One word:  Waco.
3. Everything’s bigger in Texas.
4. Some have suggested that Baptist sentiment is a force in this raid (at least at whipping everyone into a frenzy).
5. Some have suggested that an evangelical political plot is at play by casting the FLDS into the media at critical points in Mitt Romney’s political bid (either for POTUS or VP) to discredit him by a continual reminder that he descends from polygamists and is therefore too weird to hold such high office.

Having said all that, I would not shed a single tear if the end of polygamy is the outcome of this action.  I am thrilled polygamy was ended by the LDS in 1890.  And a religion (like FLDS) that encourages illegal behavior is inherently harmful if for no other reason than it creates a society of isolation and secrecy.  This type of secrecy can be directly harmful (creating an environment in which lying supersedes the truth), but secrecy is also indirectly harmful in that abuse can flourish in an isolated environment.

I acknowledge that there are issues wih prosecuting polygamy that make it difficult because consensual polygamous marriages are not legal; therefore, being in a polygamous marriage is not illegal because you’re only married to one person legally. It’s not illegal in this country to have consensual unmarried sex and children with many partners.  It’s called “hooking up,” and it’s quite popular (throw in a tramp stamp and a hairdo, and these women would not be getting hauled off in Baptist school buses).  So, prosecution usually focuses on:
1 - statutory rape
2 - abuse
3 - welfare fraud

Obviously, statutory rape and abuse usually require a complainant, difficult to obtain in most cases, but even moreso in a secretive group already wary of outsiders where patriarchal authority is unquestioned.  Welfare fraud feels a bit like nabbing Al Capone for postal fraud.  And it may fall into the “bigger fish to fry” category for pragmatic reasons.

So, what can be done?  If I were running the world, here are a few radical changes I would suggest (speaking of overreaching):
1 – raise the legal marriage age to 18 nationally, no exceptions. 18 is still too young if you ask me.  If I had to live with choices I made at 18 . . . well, I’m just glad I do not.
2 – eliminate home schooling or severely restrict it (e.g. limit to one consecutive year and insist on some additional oversight and socialization).

And lastly, if this does mean the end of polygamy (because it is being attacked directly for the first time), take the following steps:
1 – grant the mothers custody on condition they agree not to return to or enter into any more polygamous relationships. This requires ongoing monitoring, but if you’re going to take down polygamy, it’s the only way.  Otherwise, TX has to follow the AZ and UT lead and only prosecute what can be prosecuted directly.  Placing all the children into foster care seems unduly harsh; if the mothers were given a way to retain their children, even if it meant giving up their (sort of) illegal religious practice, many would comply.
2 – research and prosecute for every instance of abuse, statutory rape, and welfare fraud.  Go after these things with a vengeance until they are completely eliminated.

So, do you believe Texas has overreached?  And will Texas take it to the mattresses or not?  Does this mean the end of polygamy (again, once and for all)?  Or will TX back off and follow the lead of AZ & UT, only prosecuting what is feasible?  Will the ACLU ever intervene?  And if the end of polygamy occurs, can we “re-patriate” this splinter group into mainstream America?  Will they ultimately renounce Jeffs as a false prophet, leave the FLDS, and join the LDS?  Would they choose their children over their lifestyle if presented with that alternative?