The FLDS aren’t so different from you and me

As Texas battles the Fundamentalist Mormons in Eldorado, the courts are cleaning up the mess in the Arizona Strip towns of Hildale and Colorado City. The Arizona Strip struggle isn’t about children and families. It’s about property … houses. In Eldorado, they’re trying to figure out who the parents of the kids are. An administrator appointed by the 3rd District Court is simply trying to figure out who lives in those houses and collect enough money from them to keep the place going. People still need basics like a water system and streets.

People across the country are trying to comprehend how this could have happened. What would make people act this way? The FLDS themselves argue that they’re being persecuted for their beliefs and they have a right to live life in their own way.

Extreme cases like this have a way of shining a spotlight on things that are not as obvious otherwise. One of the things that stands out in bold contrast is what “community” really is.

The FLDS would say that all they want is to be “left alone”. That philosophy runs strong through Color Country. But the FLDS case shows that it’s really not that these people want to be left alone. It’s that they reject “your” community in favor of a different one. The FLDS in the Arizona Strip, for example, say that they don’t want to pay taxes or a court-ordered assessment for city maintenance. But they happily gave money to Warren Jeffs and the FLDS-run United Effort Plan. The first is not their community. The second is.

The earliest civilizations happened because people discovered that with community values and effort, far more could be accomplished. Crops could be cultivated. Houses could be built. Rivers could be diverted. But “community values” took on dimensions far greater than just the common agreement to build a dam. Soon, you had to dress the same way, raise your family the same way, even eat and drink the same way.

I recently took issue with a decision by the Town Council here in Color Country to not allow folks in the Earth Day celebration to enjoy a beer. In my view, that’s mainly “your” community riding roughshod over “my” community.

If we want to continue to enjoy the benefits of a strong and united community, we’ve got to pay attention to whether we’re just fixing the streets or trying to fix each other’s community.