THIS BOOK IS A “MUST READ” FOR ANYONE INTERESTED IN THE NATURE OF RELIGIOUS BELIEF AND FUNDAMENTALISM.
UNDER THE BANNER OF HEAVEN
A Story of Violent Faith
BY JON KRAKAUER
ISBN 0-330-41912-9
Published by Pan Books
On July 24, 1984 a woman and her infant daughter were murdered by two brothers who believed they were ordered to kill by God. The roots of their crime lay deep in the history of an American religion practiced by millions…
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“Then Brenda got married, and Allen didn’t want her to work, so she kind of put her broadcasting career on the shelf temporarily, and took a lower-profile job at Castleton’s, one of the nicer stores at the Orem Mall, just to get insurance and help support the family. But Allen started pressuring her to quit that job, too, because he wanted her to be a traditional, subservient wife. He wanted her to be totally reliant on him.”
Although standing up to Allen meant standing up to the entire Lafferty clan, Brenda did not shy away from such confrontations. Not only was she quite willing to argue theology with the Lafferty brothers, she possessed an impressive command of LDS scripture that allowed her to more than hold her own when debating fundamentalist doctrine with Ron and Dan. They came to despise her for defying them and for her influence over Allen, whom they considered “pussy-whipped.”
Dan characterizes his dad as “strong-willed”, a “very individual, individual” and “strict about a lot of things.” In fact, Watson Lafferty was a formidable disciplinarian who did not hesitate to beat the living tar out of his children or his wife, Claudine, to enforce the rules. Commonly, the children were present to witness the punishment when Watson hit Claudine – a reserved, submissive wife whom Dan describes as “ a good woman and an excellent mother.” The children were also present when Watson clubbed the family dog to death with a baseball bat.
The Peace Maker offered an elaborate biblical rationale for polygamy, which it proposed as a cure for the myriad ills that plagued monogamous relationships and, by extension, all of humankind. Part of that cure was making sure that women remained properly subservient, as God intended. According to the tract:
"The government of the wife is therefore placed in the husband by the law of God; for he is the head. I suffer not a woman saith the Lord to teach, or to usurp authority over a man, but to be in subjection…
…Nothing is further from the minds of our wives in general, that the idea of submitting to their husbands in all things, and of reverencing their husbands. They will boldly ridicule the idea of calling them sincerely in their hearts lords and masters…
Here, the wife is pronounced the husband’s property, as much so as his manservant, his maidservant, his ox, or his horse…"
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As soon as he went in the house, he punched [Brenda] as hard as he could, and she fell down again on the floor. And he said that he was calling her a bitch, and, you know, telling her what he thought about her.
And he said that she was begging him and pleading with him, you know, to stop. And he said he just kept beating her and beating her; said she wouldn’t go down and stay down.
So while he got Dan to hold her on the floor, he said that he got up and cut a vacuum-cleaner cord off and proceeded to tie it around her neck, kept it there until Dan told him – to let him know that she had went limp.
And he said at that time he removed the cord, and him and Dan picked her up, took her into the kitchen, laid her on the floor, and cut her throat. He said he cut her from ear to ear, and he demonstrated how…
A little bit later on after that, Ron had pulled a knife out of his – removed the knife from his boot. And he started banging it on his knee, and said, “I killed her. I killed her. I killed the bitch. I can’t believe I killed her.” He went on to brag about his knuckle being swelled up, you know, maybe broke, you know, from hitting her.
Carnes testified that when Ron basted of cutting Brenda from ear to ear, he had also described, in repugnant detail, how after he drew the knife across her throat, he yanked her head back and
opened her neck so the blood would flow freely and everything. And he then said he handed the knife to Dan. He turned and he kind of glanced at me, and then he looked back at Dan and said, “Thank you, brother, for doing the baby, because I don’t think I had it in me.” And Dan replied and said, “It was no problem.”
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For all their fecundy, Mormon Fundamentalists are strangely squeamish about sex. Boys and girls are forbidden to date, or even flirt, before marriage. Sex education consists of teaching children that the human body is a shameful vessel that should be veiled from the eyes of others at all times. “We are told to treat each other like snakes,” explains one of Debbie’s sons. Women and girls are required to wear long dresses, even while swimming. Boys and men wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts. Both genders must wear sacred long underwear beneath their clothing at all times, even on sweltering summer days. According to the Law of Chastity, sexual intercourse ifs officially forbidden even between husband and wife unless the woman is ovulating…
In spite of – or, more likely, precisely because of – the atmosphere of sexual repression in Bountiful, incest and other disturbing behaviors are rampant, although the abuse goes conspicuously unacknowledged. Debbie remembers older boys taking girls as young as four into a big white barn behind the school to play “cows and bulls” among the hay bales.
Michael became emotionally withdrawn and angry. He sexually molested one of Debbie’s sons, as well as another boy outside of the family. On October 27, 1986, Debbie’s daughter Sharon was lying in bed with a high fever. Michael went into her bedroom, Debbie says, “and began…
After blurting out to her mother what Michael had done, Sharon cried uncontrollably for weeks. She told Debbie that she was terrified she would have to marry Michael, because some of her friends in Colorado City had had to marry their stepfathers after being molested by them.
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In April 2002, for instance, the mayor’s own son and namesake, Dan Barlow Jr., was charged with repeatedly molesting five of his daughters over a period of ten years. Barlow admitted that he viewed his daughters as “wives” but the town closed ranks around him, and his father, the mayor, went before the court and pleaded for leniency. In the end, four of the daughters refused to testify against Barlow. He got off with a suspended sentence after agreeing to sign a statement that said, “I made a mistake. I want to make it right. I am sorry. I want to be a good person. I raised a good family, been a good father. I love them all, a fatherly love.”
“Nobody who knows anything about this religion is surprised Dan didn’t go to jail.” says Debbie Palmer, a former member of the Canadian branch of the religion, barely able to contain her disgust. “Do you have any idea what kind of pressure those poor Barlow girls must have been under not to testify against their father, the mayor’s son? I’m sure the prophet told them that if they said one word, they were going straight to hell. When I was abused by prominent members of the religion, that’s what I was told, every time.”
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Mary Ann had an unsettling story to report. Immediately after her sixteenth birthday, the girl’s father, a businessman named John Daniel Kingston, had pulled her out of high school and forced her to become the fifteenth wife of his brother, David Ortell Kingston – Mary Ann’s 32-year old uncle. John Daniel, David Ortell, and Mary Ann are among 1200 members of the so-called Kingston Clan – a particularly secretive Mormon Fundamentalist sect based in Salt Lake County, officially known as the Latter Day Church of Christ, currently led by a lawer named Paul Kingston who is married to at least twenty-five women and has fathered some 200 offspring.
The Kingstons own numerous own numerous businesses in at least five western states – a shadowy network of corporations and limited partnerships worth at least $150 million. Despite the clan’s great wealth, may of the Kingston wives and children live in poverty and receive welfare. All but the most privileged members of the sect are required to work as many as sixty hours per week for a near-minimum wage at one of the Kingston businesses. Instead of receiving paychecks clan members have their wages deposited into a Kingston band account, and receive scrip that allows them to make purchases at Kingston-owned stores. Rents, debts and an obligatory ten percent tithe are deducted from each member’s account.
Even more than in other fundamentalist Mormon groups, incest is a common practice among the Kingstons. Clan leaders promote it to “purify” the Kingston bloodline, and birth defects are rampant as a consequence. Genealogical researcher Linda Walker says that Kingston women have reported giving birth to “blobs of protoplasm,” and “having eight or nine pregnancies without ever giving birth to a living infant. The leaders of the clan of course blame this on the women, characterizing it as a punishment for their sinful behavior.”
After being married against her will to her uncle, David Ortell Kingston, at the age of sixteen, Mary Ann Kingston tried to run away twice but was caught on each occasion. Following the second escape, she sought refuge with her mother – who promptly turned the girl over to her father, John Daniel Kingston. John Daniel then drove Mary Ann to an isolated ranch near the Utah-Idaho border, which the Kingstons used as a “re-education camp” for wayward wives and disobedient children. He took the girl into a barn, pulled his belt off, and used it to whip her savagely across the buttocks, thighs and lower back, inflicting hideous injuries.
After brutalizing his daughter, John Daniel departed, at which point Mary Ann fled from the ranch and limped five miles along a dirt road until she reached a gas station, where she called the police.
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This is a brilliant expose on the brutality and danger of religious fundamentalism. Religious fundamentalism - whether it is Islamic, Hindu, Mormon, or Born-Again - is a cancerous growth in modern society and should be fought in every way possible. I commend Jon Krakauer for having the intellectual integrity to tell it like it is.
While reading “Under the Banner of Heaven” I would often pause and shake my head in disbelief. How could that be in today’s America: child-brides, forced marriages, polygamy, incest! In the year 2005! Unbelievable isn’t it?
Web editor
DOCTRINE & COVENANT 132 on Mormon polygamy
and 'THE PEACE MAKER' laws on marriage
ALSO SEE: WOMEN IN THE BIBLE & CHASTITY NIGHTHome | Articles | Quotes | Humour | Resources | Links | Site Map | Email