Is your argument that those priests and cannibals did not intend to kill their victims? I find that less than credible, to put it mildly.
These people are quite sure of their moral absolutes also:
Violence under banner of religion
Author probes extreme fringe
outside modern Mormonism
Watch the 'Dateline' report.
NBC NEWS
July 15 — Her story gripped the nation for the better part of a
year, but after Utah teenager Elizabeth Smart was found in
March, relief quickly gave way to disturbing questions about
her alleged kidnappers. Who are Brian David Mitchell and his
wife, Wanda Barzee? And what might their motives have been
for taking Elizabeth? The answers, it turns out, may lie in a dark
chapter of Utah’s unique history, in a strange place where
religion can sometimes give way to fanaticism. According to an
explosive new book, it’s a place where, in the name of God,
some have felt the compulsion to commit the most ungodly
acts.
WHEN ELIZABETH SMART was suddenly rescued after an
absence of nine months, there was great relief. But when word came
that Smart’s accused kidnapper was once a Mormon, a former
member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, one
prison inmate says he knew instantly the motivation for the crime.
Dan Lafferty: “I immediately said to myself, polygamy is
involved. I just saw the scenario that actually unfolded in the next
few days.”
How could Lafferty so quickly guess details that would only
later be revealed to the public? Because Lafferty, like accused
kidnapper Brian David Mitchell, is an excommunicated Mormon.
Like Mitchell, Lafferty believes in polygamy, and that he receives
revelations from God. Only, the message that Lafferty and his
brother Ron acted on almost 20 years ago led not to a kidnapping
—but to a double murder.
Tom Brokaw: “You freely admit that you killed, in cold-blooded
fashion, your sister-in-law and her infant child, Brenda and Erica.”
Lafferty: [nods]
Brokaw: “You still feel no remorse for that crime?”
Lafferty: “I don’t think that I would. I wouldn’t want to offend
God by being remorseful.”
Read an excerpt: 'Under the Banner of Heaven'
The claim of the Lafferty brothers that they were directed by
God’s will to commit these heinous murders is a special problem in
Utah. One of the fundamental tenets of the Mormon church is that
God does speak directly to individual members of the faith. A
disturbing number of crimes in Utah have been committed using
that claim — that it was “God’s will.”
Jon Krakauer: “Common sense is no match for the voice of
God.”
Best-selling author Jon Krakauer has written a book called
“Under the Banner of Heaven: a Story of Violent Faith.” Krakauer
has spent more than four years researching the roots of the
Mormon faith, and the beliefs of those former Mormons known as
Fundamentalists, who advocate a return to polygamy as a true
teaching of the Church, and are willing to commit violence.
Brokaw: “You’ve been working on this story for a long time.
What got you interested in it in the first place?”
Krakauer: “I grew up in a small town in Oregon among
Mormons. They were my playmates, my teachers. And my own
family was for all intents and purposes, atheists, but I was baffled
by their certainty, I mean the strength of their belief. Nothing could
shake it. And once I started investigating Mormonism I came
across something that I knew nothing about, that out in the West
there’s maybe as many as 100,000 of these polygamists whom the
Mormons don’t consider Mormons at all. So I started looking into
it, and one thing led to another, and before long I crossed paths
with Dan Lafferty.
Dan Lafferty and his brother are among the unsettling number
of former Mormons, fundamentalists whose crimes have made
headlines.
In the 1970s, Ervil LeBaron, who believed that he was a prophet
sent by God, directed his followers to murder rival polygamists,
eventually killing more than 20 people. In 1979, polygamist John
Singer refused to send his children to public school.
Singer was killed in a
shootout with police. And a
decade later, Singer’s
son-in-law claimed God
directed him to blow up a
Mormon church building.
Addam Swapp did just that,
and held off police for 13
days. The standoff ended in
a burst of gunfire that left
Swapp wounded and a law enforcement officer dead.
Krakauer: “This violent tradition this culture of violence
pervades the movement. You see it time and time again, these
eruptions of fundamentalists, spilling blood in some very dramatic
and upsetting ways.”
But few of these “violent believers” have ever spoken so
openly about their faith or their crimes as Dan Lafferty. In the early
1980s, he was a respected chiropractor who ran for county sheriff.
His brother was once a star athlete, and city councilman. Then they
began to read and believe in the early teachings of Mormonism,
which included polygamy. The Mormon Church, which officially
renounced polygamy more than 100 ago, expelled the Laffertys.
Lafferty: “I was excommunicated from the church basically, the
wording that was used, conduct unbecoming a member of the
church.”
Brokaw: “What did your parents say to you during that time?”
Lafferty: “Well, my father thought I’d gone insane.”
The change in the brothers was too much for some family
members. Divorce and disputes followed. One sister-in-law
particularly enraged the brothers. That was 24-year-old Brenda
Lafferty, an aspiring television journalist who led a mainstream
Mormon life. Dan’s brother claimed the Lord commanded that
Brenda and her 15-month-old daughter Erica needed to be
“removed from the earth” because they stood in the way of God’s
work.
Krakauer: “They pondered this intensely. And Dan decided it
was true and it must be carried out. because when God tells you to
do something, if you’re a true believer, you don’t ignore that
lightly. I mean, you do what God says.”
Lafferty: “I didn’t want to offend God by being afraid. The day
of the 24th of July we went to my brothers apartment with the
intention of fulfilling the revelation.”
July 24th, 1984, was Pioneer Day, which commemorates the
arrival of the Mormons in Utah. On that day, one of Utah’s most
significant holidays, the Lafferty brothers drove to the town of
American Fork to confront Brenda.
Lafferty: “I got out of the car, I went to the door, and the first
knock the door opened.”
Inside, as his brother Ron watched, Dan Lafferty says he cut
the throat of Brenda as well as his young niece. Two weeks later the
Lafferty brothers were captured. Convicted of murder, Dan received
a prison sentence of life. But Ron was sentenced to die. He remains
on death row for two murders many have struggled to understand.
Brokaw: “Do you think it’s possible that you were driven to kill
her because she stood up to you and your brother? Because she
was articulate and intelligent and would not succumb to what was
going on within the family and other members of the family?”
Lafferty: “In my heart and mind, no. Since I’ve been in prison I
was willing to consider with God that I may have been wrong. And
if God would let me know that I was wrong I would be happy to do
anything I could to try to make things right with God.”
Brokaw: “But in your judgement you have received no sign
from God that you could have been wrong?”
Lafferty: “That’s correct. That’s correct.”
After 19 years in prison, Dan Lafferty believes that he is the
prophet Elijah, who will herald the second coming of Christ. But has
it occurred to Lafferty that he has a great deal in common with a
well known Islamic fundamentalist?
Brokaw: “What about Osama bin Laden? What separates him
from you?”
Lafferty: “Him from me? Well, for the observer probably little or
nothing.”
Krakauer: “Dan Lafferty and Osama bin Laden are cut from the
same cloth. They’re both these fanatical believers who let nothing
get in the way of carrying out what they believe is God’s will.
Nothing. Not human life, common sense — it all goes out the
window.”
And among Dan Lafferty’s most disturbing beliefs today is this:
that there are many more groups of excommunicated Mormons in
Utah and elsewhere, ready to commit violence in the name of God.
Lafferty: “I know of a half a dozen different groups who, I
think, wouldn’t probably hesitate to take lives in their cause.”
Brokaw: “You think there are other true believers out there who
may take lives?”
Lafferty: “I’m confident it will probably happen.”
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints tells “Dateline”
that Fundamentalists who share the Laffertys beliefs have no
connection whatsoever to the church. In a statement, the church
said the vast majority of Saints are “peace-loving people who” ...
“practice their religion in a spirit of non-violence.” The church also
calls Krakauer an “agnostic” who has written a book that is a
“condemnation of religion,” and a “decidedly one-sided and
negative view of Mormon history.”
Brokaw: “As you know, mainstream Mormons are going to be
watching all this and they’re going to be furious.”
Krakauer: “In some sense I’m kind of surprised. Because in my
book I make a very clear distinction between mainstream Mormons
and Fundamentalists.”
But Krakauer believes that another violent chapter in the book
of the excommunicated Mormons, the Fundamentalists, is
inevitable, although church and state authorities may try to move
heaven and earth to stop it.
Brokaw: “It’s likely that Ron Lafferty will be executed, Dan
Lafferty will spend the rest of his days in prison. Does that send
any kind of a message to the Fundamentalists out there about
consequences for their behavior? Do you think it’ll discourage
them in any way?”
Krakauer: “I think it’s quite the opposite. They’re not afraid of
death. Their glory is in the afterlife. When people start listening to
God and ignoring common sense the world becomes a much more
dangerous place because you can’t argue with the voice of God.
There’s no talking sense to someone who says God told me to do it,
so that’s it, I have to do it.”
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