Just saw "In God's Country"

[EllieCee]

I don't usually watch the Lifetime Movie Network, but when my mom was watching it, I saw the commercial for "In God's Country". It looked interesting, so I put it on. To those who doesn't know, it's basically about a Mormon housewife who runs away with her children from the cult because they were going to make her 12-year old daughter a bride.

To anyone who's seen it, is this an accurate portrayal of these kinds of cults? I've looked up a bit on Warren Jeffs and such, but since this is a Lifetime Movie, I don't know if anything's been changed for entertainment's sake.

[Guest Anonymous]

It was a Canadian production and when I saw it could definitely see they were basing it on Bountiful B.C/Warren Jeffs' US communities. Given that a girl was shuffled across the border to marry Jeffs at age 15 a couple years ago (per recent court testimony) I'd say it's close to accurate. Really you'd have to ask a former member to really know.

[IReallyAmHopewell]

It was probably loosely based on Carolyn Jessup's book "Escape"

[xDreamerx]

I watched it a couple of years ago when CTV aired it. I liked it, for a lifetime movie. I still can't believe the charges were dismissed in AZ. I bet he bought the judge off or something. Does anyone know why the charges were dismissed?

There was also a special on W5 or The Passionate Eye, a few years ago, about Bountiful. I'll see if I can find it. If I can, I'll post it here.

OT: Did anyone see Amish Grace?

[VenusJS]

Haha, I totally watched that last night too!

Having read pretty much every biography of FLDS "escaped" members, it seemed pretty true-to-form, at least for the present Jeffs-lead FLDS. It seems like before Jeffs jr. came into power it was at least the tiniest bit more liberal - ie, thirteen year olds didn't marry 50 year olds as often.

[deelaem]

I just finished reading "Lost Boys" by Brent Jeffs. He is Warren Jeffs' nephew. He and his family were drummed out of the FLDS cult (yes, I said cult) by Warren Jeffs. The stuff that went down when Warren took over will blow your mind. At one point he ordered his people not to smile or laugh because he said they were sinning too much and they didn't deserve it. He also raped little boys who where about 5-6 years of age. He didn't like them any older than that. Yup, that's right, he's that sick of a fuck.

I'm sure a Lifetime movie barely scratched the surface of what really goes on in the FLDS.

[bananacat]

Haha, I totally watched that last night too!

Having read pretty much every biography of FLDS "escaped" members, it seemed pretty true-to-form, at least for the present Jeffs-lead FLDS. It seems like before Jeffs jr. came into power it was at least the tiniest bit more liberal - ie, thirteen year olds didn't marry 50 year olds as often.

I don't remember when or where I heard this, but maybe it was a few years ago when they were big in the news. Apparently several decades ago the official marriage age for women was 22, and then Jeffs or some other big-wig kept creeping it lower, to 20 then 18 then 16 and then the mother of a 13 year-old freaked out when he was planning to lower it yet again to 14 just so her daughter could be married almost right away. So yeah, I think the child marriages weren't so common in the past.

[xDreamerx]

We talked about Sons of Predition on the OWN network here a while ago. I watched it and in it one of the boys/young men said that before Jeffs took over it was very different. There was schools (I'm not sure if they would meet the standard of our schools but schools nonetheless). They were allowed to watch television and movies, to listen to the radio etc. He said he remembered watching Disney movies so I would gather their media consumption was not restricted to Christian type things. He said there were even dances and harvest parties. The young people were even allowed to meet and "date" at these dances to try and find a potential mate. It was probably more of a courtship but he gave the impression that they were at least allowed to talk and get to know one another and that they were allowed to choose who they would marry as opposed to just being assigned.

[luckylibrarian]

If I remember correctly, Carolyn Jessop was a teacher in one of these schools shortly before Warren Jeffs shut it down. The education probably wasn't fabulous, but probably no worse than some of the public schools in my area.