UC Santa Cruz UC Santa Cruz Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Religious [Out]Laws: An Analysis of the 2008 Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints Raid Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0hp80437 Author Ambutter, Cassie Nicole Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA CRUZ Religious [Out]Laws: An Analysis of the 2008 Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints Raid A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in POLITICS By Cassie Ambutter June 2014 The Dissertation of Cassie Ambutter is approved: ____________________________ Professor Dean Mathiowetz, Co-Chair ____________________________ Professor Mayanthi Fernando, Co-Chair ____________________________ Professor Vanita Seth ____________________________ Professor Neda Atanasoski ___________________________________ Tyrus Miller Vice Provost and Dean of Graduate Studies Copyright © by Cassie Ambutter 2014 Table of Contents Abstract………………………………………………………………………..……...iv Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………..….vi Chapter 1: The Spring 2008 FLDS Raid: Stakes, Concerns, and the Place of Polygamy in U.S. Culture………………………………………………….1 Chapter 2: Public Order, the Problem of Polygamy, and the Project of Secularism: Taming Robust Religious Difference…………………………………….24 Chapter 3: “The Church Is Its People”………………………………………………67 Chapter 4: Political Fissures, Analytical Imbrications: The Impossibility of FLDS Teen Pregnancy…...…………………………………………………..…109 Chapter 5: Queer Spaces……………………………………….……………….…..145 Chapter 6: A Conclusion in Four Parts…………..…………….…..………….……181 Bibliography……………………………………………………….………….……203 iii Abstract Religious [Out]Laws: An Analysis of the 2008 Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints Raid By Cassie Ambutter In early April 2008, based on a single allegation of child abuse, the state of Texas and Child Protective Services (CPS) executed a raid on the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints, a polygamous Mormon group living on the “Yearning for Zion” ranch in Eldorado, Texas. The raid involved the immediate removal of over 400 children who were then placed in protective custody in nearby San Angelo. Despite the fact that the initial abuse allegation was determined to be a hoax, the raid was the catalyst for a long and drawn-out legal battle over whether the FLDS were suitable parents. While CPS described this case as a series of clear-cut instances of child sexual abuse, I contend that much more lay below the surface. I argue that CPS’s simple narrative of the FLDS as an unthinking and brainwashed monolithic cult missed the deep complexities of this case. Specifically, I submit that an analysis of the FLDS raid requires attention to the ways in which religion and sexuality function as dual sites of legal, constitutional, and political regulation. Considering topics such as the category of religion and religious freedom, the notion of public order, and the legal construction of the child and the family, I examine ways that the FLDS – representing both a religious and a sexual minority – face a peculiar set of difficulties when attempting to interface with the law. Drawing heavily on theories of secularism, religious freedom constitutional jurisprudence, classical liberal philosophy and its iv contemporary critics, as well as queer theory, I unpack and explore the nuances of the initial 14-day hearing to determine child custody as well as subsequent decisions from the Third Court of Appeals in Austin and the Texas Supreme Court. Formative of my theoretical interventions and jurisprudential analyses are the in-person interviews I conducted with ad-litem attorneys who served as legal guardians for FLDS minors after the raid. The ad-litem attorneys were responsible for articulating to the court the best interests of the FLDS minors. Because it provided insight into the relationship between the FLDS and the law, the ethnographic component of this dissertation is crucial to the formulation of many of my central claims about the FLDS as both religious and sexual minorities. Ultimately, I describe how, regardless of one’s political position on whether the raid itself was justified, the law’s tumultuous relationship with FLDS difference produced many undesirable outcomes. From the smooth reunion of FLDS parents with their children, to a comprehensive determination of whether actual sexual abuse had occurred in every household, the structure of the law presented a serious roadblock to the resolution of many of the raid’s central conflicts. v Acknowledgements There are many people to whom I owe an immeasurable debt of gratitude for this project. These are people without whom this dissertation would not exist. The Brigham Young University Library, its archives, and its librarians were a tremendous help to me in the nascent stages of this project. The LDS friends I made at BYU are some of the loveliest and most genuine people I’ve ever met. They took my intellectual inquiry seriously even if they didn’t necessarily agree with what I was arguing. The lawyers I interviewed over the course of two summers in Texas are a group of seriously badass zealous advocates and I am still in awe of their dedication to their clients. The access they granted me was essential to this project and I am grateful that they took several hours at a time out of their busy days to answer my questions. I’ve never had much faith in the law, but those lawyers really challenged me in that regard. The story of the FLDS raid helped me come to terms with what it means to have faith and especially helped me come to terms with my own faith. They are as strong and resilient and complex as all of the rest of us. This project is for them too. I am indebted to my committee: Dean Mathiowetz, Mayanthi Fernando, Vanita Seth, and Neda Atanasoski. At different points in this process, they all helped me generate new ideas, reassured me, and showed me incredible kindness and patience. I am a better writer and a better teacher because of each of them. To my lifelines and my colleagues-for-life, Karen de Vries and Jasmine Syedullah: thank vi you for keeping me sane, reminding me of what’s important, and for showing me what true friendship really is. I am so infinitely glad that amid the sea of competition and bitterness, I managed to find you guys. Milad Odabaei is an indispensible intellectual resource, a generous and kind reader, and he also introduced me to chocolate cream scones. He was there for me during one of the worst periods of my life. I will never forget that. Even though we probably never quite understood each other’s projects, I am very grateful to Shawn Nichols for her ear, her patience, her support, and her couch (!). Finding a friend in graduate school within your own discipline with whom you feel no competitiveness is kind of a miracle. She is totally that miracle for me. I met Cindy Morris on my first day of graduate school, which coincidentally was also one of her first days on the job. During the first six years of my time at UCSC, she advocated for me every step of the way. I found in Cindy not merely an administrative resource, but also someone for whom I came to care deeply – a friend more than a supervisor. She had faith in me even when I had no idea why. Now I get it. My students over the past 7 years, particularly Caitlin Emmons, Ashelen Vicuna, Ernest Chavez, and Naveed Mansoori are a major reason I was able to complete this project. I tested out so many of the ideas in this dissertation in front of the classroom. My students humbled me, challenged me, and moved me at every turn and I am blessed to have been able to walk with them on their journeys. They remain the most incredible people I have ever met and I am in awe of them. vii My best friend in the whole world, Josh Sucher, shows up at my door unannounced and makes time stop for a few days so we can be 16 again. I am infinitely grateful for those moments of respite and I hope they continue for the rest of our lives. Truly, “I love you” could never be enough. Christine Bunting has spent 7 years talking me off of ledges, stopping my hyperventilation, and loving me at my most unlovable and insufferable moments. This dissertation would not be possible without her. I could never adequately articulate how grateful I am to JSB. She encouraged me to write, even when I wasn’t sure why I was writing or if I was even capable of writing. And even though I know she’d attribute it to “someone else,” she quite honestly saved my life and handed it back to me. She truly is and always will be my [fairy] godmother. The people at House For All Sinners and Saints in Denver and St. Gregory of Nyssa in San Francisco loved me back to life and helped me discover my true calling in life. Any roadblock I faced in the last 18 months of writing simply could not have been overcome without all of them. When I started writing Chapter 2 and knew I was going to call it “The Church Is Its People,” I had absolutely no idea what that would come to mean to me. I cannot thank them enough for reminding me of God’s presence in the world in everything they do. They are my chosen family and it is because of them that I am learning how to love fearlessly and with reckless abandon. Good Friday may be every day, but luckily so is Easter. viii Chapter 1 Introduction: The Spring 2008 FLDS Raid: Stakes, Concerns, and the Place of Polygamy in U.S. Culture On March 29, 2008, a Texas Child Protective Services hotline received a phone call that would eventually cost the state over $15 million.