Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey

To be honest, I didn’t know much about the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) before watching this documentary, but I was curious for a few reasons: I love everything related to religion, and I love true crime — and this documentary has both. Spoilers ahead!

This mini-series has 4 episodes and starts with the previous “prophet” — an 85-year-old man who was marrying 19-year-old girls and establishing rules like deciding who would marry whom, rather than letting people or their families choose. Already bad enough.

After the old “prophet” dies (in a way that gives the impression one of his sons may have helped things along), Warren Jeffs becomes the new “prophet” and takes the cult to a whole new level — turning it into a full authoritarian cult where very little of the original “Bible” remained.

He effectively “legalised” child marriages within the community of 8,000–10,000 people — forcing girls as young as 14–15 to marry older men, while also imposing heavy restrictions on women’s appearance, education and work.

After police and the FBI received information about the crimes and arrested one of his “minions” — a police officer — Warren fled, but continued to exploit his community from hiding. While on the run, he was sent $300,000 per week (in 2004), which he spent on trips to Disneyland, sports events, strip clubs and similar places.

Warren terrorised an entire small town where fundamentalists and ordinary people lived side by side. His organisation owned numerous businesses and had people everywhere, including inside the police force. He had previously forced everyone to sell their homes and businesses and relocate, leaving people with nothing — and too afraid to lose what little community they had left. They were completely manipulated into compliance.

Warren had 78 wives, 24 of them minors. A search of his “temple” also uncovered audio and video recordings of the rape of 12-year-old girls, as well as records of child marriages.

Some of the stories told by the victims themselves are chilling. And this documentary is yet more proof of how patriarchal and misogynistic organised religion can be — ultimately reducing women to objects owned by men. One thing I found particularly striking: there are no men in any of these stories who openly went against the system — went to the police, reported the crimes, pushed law enforcement to act. It’s always women, old and young, who are willing to risk everything, including their own safety, to bring justice and protect other women and girls. Even the news reporters quote women expressing outrage. Makes you wonder — do the men stay silent because they think it’s none of their business, even when their own children are being abused? Or is it because they know they’re part of the problem, and exposing it would take them down too?

I also think that in cases like this, it shouldn’t only be the “prophet” or leader who faces consequences. The followers who agreed to marry underage girls and had “sexual intercourse” — which is rape — with them should also be prosecuted and imprisoned. No amount of religious conviction can make a person with a clean conscience believe that raping a child is acceptable. And I’ll die on this hill.