Pervy 'prophet' found guilty

Warren Jeffs, self-annointed prophet and grand pooh-bah of polygamist sect Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, was found guilty today on two counts of rape as an accomplice for forcing a 14-year-old girl to wed and have sex with her 19-year-old cousin.

Predictably, Jeffs claimed he was being persecuted because of his religion. Well, there are a lot of religions with odd beliefs or customs around the world. But as politically correct and tolerant we are in our views of religion, it's important to know the difference between a religion and a destructive cult. One easy definition by former Moonie Steve Hassan, who now runs the Freedom of Mind Center to help people get out of cults:

"A destructive cult is a pyramid-shaped authoritarian regime with a person or group of people that have dictatorial control. It uses deception in recruiting new members (e.g. people are NOT told up front what the group is, what the group actually believes and what will be expected of them if they become members). It also uses mind control techniques to keep people dependent and obedient. ... Benign cult groups are any group of people who have a set of beliefs and rituals that are non-mainstream. As long as people are freely able to choose to join with full disclosure of the group's doctrine and practices and can choose to disaffiliate without fear or harassment, then it doesn't fall under the behavioral/ psychological destructive cult category."

Simply put, when you hurt other people you cease to be entitled to use a defense of "religious persecution" when called to answer for your crimes. The turning point in this case was the brave young woman who spoke up about her abuse. Hopefully this case will put on notice those cult figures who continue to deceive, buy influence, force or coerce their members into marrying, etc. And hopefully everyone will see that destructive cults didn't die with the 1970s.

Comments

[cheryl]

Amen...as it were.

PS...
Does Moveon.org qualify as a cult?

[1inchgroup]

I'm having the pleasure of listening to a local call in radio show in Southern Utah this morning...and you wouldn't believe the comments coming over the phone.

Majority of the callers don't see anything wrong with forcibly marrying off your 14 year old daughter to her cousin...

They're astounded that Jeffs got a guilty verdict, and don't think that he did anything wrong.

I'm amazed at the public opinion here when it's got some anonymity to it on the radio. I'm also moving out of here as soon as possible.

Yeah, the scenery is great, but it's like living in 5th century Europe here...

[Richard of Oregon]

Where do countries who live under Sharia(?) law fit with this definition?