The Cult

There is a cult so sinister that the leaders would sacrifice the lives and welfare of children to accomplish their goals, and the death of the leaders of their opposition would not satisfy them. One where honesty means nothing, and lurid and salacious stories are the order of the day. They are addicted to hatred and fear.
I am talking about the cult of anti-FLDS.

Dictionary.com includes these definitions for the word “cult”
2. “an instance of great veneration of a ideal, or thing as manifested by a body of admirers.”
The anti-FLDS cult members gather often to spread rumors amongst themselves, those with the most outrageous are the most celebrated. Then they all march to the same rumors.

4. “a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, ideal etc” The Only thing that brings these cult members together is their common hatred for the FLDS doctrine and/or leaders

10. “attracting a group of devotees”
Some members of the cult have become converted through propaganda, yet they are active members; writing books, becoming “experts” on television reports, and spending much of their time as activists with the government and media.

The ultimate goal of the people in this cult is to destroy the belief system and church that many of the cult members were born and raised in. Most of them have close family members who chose to stay in the church rather than join their cult, and this is what angers the cult members the very most. It is what motivates them to misrepresent their own lives, repeat salacious slander, and vilify not their family members, but the church and leaders that their family members chose to follow. They do not want to accept the fact that their family members made a conscious decision to stay with the church, so they insult their decision and refer to them as ‘brainwashed’, zombies, victims, and prisoners etc. Because the cult members are so angry and hate the church so much their family members try to avoid them when possible. This also enrages the cult members.

The cult members always center their hatred and efforts on the current leader of the church, regardless of who that leader is. If Warren Jeffs died today, his successor would become enemy number one. Before Warren Jeffs, Rulon Jeffs was enemy number one, and long before him Joseph Smith was enemy number one. It is the faith of the people and their devotion to the doctrines of the religion that the cult members really hate, even if that is not what they tell you.

The cult has an extensive missionary program that centers in propaganda media reports, books, websites and public outcries to government officials. The truth is irrelevant in the court of public opinion. There are millions of sympathizers for the cult, but if they knew and understood the truth, they would have very few. This is the significant difference between the hatred that unites the people in this cult and others, as the church they are addicted to has no desire to fight over its public image (as even this is against the religion), and the cult members take full advantage of this fact.

Anyone who has read the Book of Mormon can see a direct parallel to now. Whenever the church among the Nephites went through a reformation, some of the people became bitter because they wanted to lower the standards in the church rather than live up to them. They ‘escaped’ and ran to the Lamanites, where the standards were non existent anyway. Through misrepresented half truths, outright lies, and sympathetic pleas, they convinced the Lamanites to go to war against their own former people. The apostates would lead the Lamanites to war trying to force the Nephites to bow to them and give up their religion. When the truth was finally realized, lives and homes of many innocent people were destroyed.