So many...

You know, paying attention to the news can actually be rather depressing. I've been focusing more on national and world events lately (as opposed to the celebrity gossip...), and while I like being informed of what's going on, the things that are happening make me sad and angry. More angry than sad. I'm not really an angry person, but there are things that make me really angry.

Where do I even begin?

I think I'll start with this.

First of all. If this doesn't make you angry, then read the article again. You don't even have to read the whole thing. The title alone was enough to get me angry. Let me say, before I get beat with the "innocent until proven guilty" rhetoric, I would be perfectly willing to withhold judgement on these people until they are proven guilty. However! They found beds in the temple. BEDS. IN THE TEMPLE. Why the hell else would there be BEDS in a place that performs "spiritual marriages" of older men to girls who have just reached puberty? Can I just emphasize that girls generally go through puberty between the ages of 12 and 14 (if not earlier)? So mostly it just doesn't even matter if they're having sex in their temple. The fact that these adult men are having sex with children is disgusting. It's so disgusting that there are not even words bad enough to describe just how disgusting it is.

CNN or MSNBC (whichever channel it is that the TVs in each breakroom are permanently stuck on) was reporting on the whole thing while I was getting my lunch, and the reporter made the following comment:

"The men seem to show no remorse for their actions."

Shocked? I wasn't. I've lived in UT and ID (where there are more "plygs" than anywhere else), and I know a little bit about their culture. I can sum it up in one word: brainwashed. These people are taught from the time that they are born (to 15 year old mothers) that the outside world is evil and should be avoided. The leaders (who I'm pretty sure know that the whole thing is bull) inflict this fear on their congregants in order to keep them inside the compounds. They teach the boys that they will grow up to have as many wives as they are "worthy" of. The girls are taught from birth that their only purpose in life is to become a wife and mother. So of course these men don't show any remorse for their actions. Some of them (dare I say most of them) probably believe that marrying and having sex with underage girls is a commandment of God. They're taking the whole "multiply and replenish the Earth" thing very literally.

Their brainwashing, however, does not make up for the fact that they were having sex with underage girls. It really only explains why they don't think there's anything wrong with it. Nothing makes up for that. It's sick and wrong to the nth degree.

It makes me angry at the men in charge of this "religion," Warren Jeffs and his family. One can really only hope that Jeffs, and whatever of his brothers they can round up and put on trial, will go to prison for a really long time. Maybe prison will let them experience what it's like to be violated....