This is basically Tranquility Bay II, with a wing for 'curing' homosexuality. And it's essentially tied to the LDS, which increases the explosive controversy factor of story exposure by a million.
I'm reluctant to even post it here but I figure you guys might want to ground-floor this issue in case it takes off.
quote:His filthy digit tasted like rust and fish. "I can hurt you without leaving any marks," Brent growled as I writhed in agony on the ground. I struggled for breath as he mounted my back, put his finger in my mouth, and pulled back on my cheek, fish-hooking me. The pain was incredible. I tried to beg him to stop, but the words would not come.
After he finished beating and bludgeoning submissiveness into me, he pulled me up by the rope that was lassoed around my waist. The wool army blanket I had fashioned as a skirt had shifted askew and I stood there in my boxers bleeding from my nose, humiliated.
My green Utah Boys Ranch t-shirt had been ridiculously stretched out and looked more like a low cut blouse. I loosened the noose around my waist and pulled the itchy blanket through the loop and folded it over so it looked like a brown bath towel secured by a belt. He wasn't satisfied, he wanted more. I just wanted out of this classroom. I started to think about how I got here.
The Utah Boys Ranch appears to be a kind of tough-love school with a Christian-esque undertow. My parents thought as much when they employed its services in hopes of corralling their spiritually wayward son.
Being kidnapped was probably the last thing I was worried about at 15 years old. I was staying at my grandma's house that fateful night. My step-dad and I had been at war since I had refused to go to seminary, a church service for Mormon kids in high school that began at the ungodly hour of six in the morning.
I loathed early morning seminary more than the three hours of my Sunday regular LDS church service consumed, or the three hours on Wednesday nights. My opposition, paired with my step-dad's religious fanaticism, resulted in being grounded almost to the point of indentured servitude. Grandma's house was my sanctuary. Ironically, when I looked up at the clock that next morning - as two imposing silhouettes entered the house my mom grew up in - it was five minutes to 6 a.m. on Valentine's Day.
I was camped out on the sofa bed in the TV room with a plate of leftover lasagna from the fridge. It was half eaten and a Roseanne re-run was playing when they first walked in. They looked around as if they had been told where to go, but hadn't quite envisioned it right. They looked to their left, saw the terrified eyes of a 15-year-old, and pounced. They shoved clothes and shoes on me and I was gone before I was able to think about which way I should run. They told me very little. Their first names were Paul and Barry.
Barry was a white guy, a big mother. At least 6'5", and I would not be surprised to hear that he weighed more than 300 pounds, but he was not fat. Paul was shorter and had a darker complexion. He was big too, and meaner than Barry. He turned to me when we first got into their white mid-sized rental car and said, "You have a choice. You can be cool and get on an airplane with us and be there in a couple of hours, or you can sit back there with handcuffs on for the next 12 hours.
Non-stop."
"Where are we going," I asked, still in shock.
"Utah," Barry answered casually from the passenger seat, without turning his head. "We are from the Utah Boys Ranch, Eric, and your parents have asked us to take you back with us."
"What?" My head was spinning. I felt like I was going to throw up. There is no way that this was happening. My mom would never allow this. Utah? What the hell is a Boys Ranch? I couldn't breathe.
"I guess we're driving," Paul said odiously.
I knew the child-lock would be on and as I saw the familiar houses of my grandmother's street pass by, I started to roll down the window. We weren't going fast enough for them to notice yet and the warm Agoura Hills climate didn't tip them off. I rolled it down enough to fit my arm out and open the door from the outside when Paul paused at the stop sign at the bottom of the hill, looked back at me, and stopped the car.
He shoved the gear into park and pulled handcuffs out of somewhere and told me to give him my wrists. I sat there cuffed for a moment when I realized that I really would die from this feeling in my chest - a physical manifestation of angst. My heart was beating furiously, and I knew that I couldn't last 12 hours.
"You can take me on a plane. I'll be cool."
"Now that's more like it," Barry said kindly. "My wife will be happy."
The first person I met in Utah was Senator Chris Buttars. I had no idea who he was until that point.
All I knew was that he was to be feared, and I was scared to death of him from the moment I first saw him.
"Sit down," he squawked in a loud, high pitched, galling voice that sounded like a cross between a buzzard and an old cowboy. He continued to make it very clear that I was at his mercy. He told me who he was - politically - and the influence he had. If I ever wanted to leave I was to do what he said. "How old are you?"
"Fifteen," I mumbled.
"Three years might not be enough for you. I can have a judge order you to be here until you are 21," he croaked. With that he sent me off to be "changed and put on work crew."
I was led down a long hall of doors with nameplates. I had no clue what kind of place this was. I didn't see any cows or horses...no sign of what I thought a "ranch" would resemble. Paul took me into a small room that was no bigger than a broom closet, which was stacked to the ceiling with three colors of cloth, blue, green and brown. There were green t-shirts, blue t-shirts, and blue jeans.
There were also brown army wool blankets, and I remember thinking that I didn't want to sleep under such a coarse covering before I was told to "put it on." I was told to wrap a thick, itchy blanket around my waist like a towel and wear it like a dress.
I was then given a "leash" made of climbing rope and what I think was a square knot to tie around my waist.
I had never imagined being tethered and walked like a dog, but here I was, being walked like a dog towards a cluster of about 12 other boys. They were lined up facing a wall while two large men in red sweatshirts watched them from a couple of chairs off to the side.
Some of the boys had camouflage pants on, a few others wore dresses. I wondered how long I was to be in this blanket dress. I was later told that it was so I wouldn't run away - and they were right - I literally could not run in this humiliating getup. I could barely get a full stride walking.
That's when I saw Brent - or 'Captain America,' as he was called disparagingly - for the first time. My leash was handed off to him, but he told me to wrap it around my waist and go join the group of young men who were standing with their noses touching the wall, all spread out about arms length from each other.
I turned to the boy who was standing to my right and asked him how long he had been here, but before I could get my question all the way out, my forehead careened into the carpeted wall in front of me. A sharp pain stabbed the back of my head, and suddenly bad breath filled my nostrils. "Are you talking on my work crew, boy?" a red-shirted man screamed at me.
My head was ringing. I was still trying to piece together what had just happened when I looked behind me and massaged the pain in my head. Suddenly my legs fell out from underneath me and I was on my back.
He had just slammed my forehead into the wall, and now he had put his foot behind mine and pushed me, sending me to the floor flat on my back.
He stood over me and bawled, "Don't look at me. Don't look around. Don't you MOVE without permission! You don't do anything without permission! If you talk, I think you are talking about running away, and I will restrain you. Do you understand?" I nodded. I knew then that I had to get out of this place. I wasn't going to last here.
It was only my second week on work crew when Neil Westwood refused to turn his back to Brent and place his nose on the wall, which is what the command "face the wall" plainly meant. It was a Mexican standoff for a few moments. Stunningly it seemed like Brent was going to let Neil get his way. I had never seen an older boy in a pissing contest with a staff member before. The younger kids refused commands, but they were always quickly thumped into docility.
Neil was a big kid, a lot bigger than me - probably 230 pounds or so, and over six-feet tall, but dispelled any image of toughness with his glasses, disproportionately small arms, and frizzy hairdo. Neil was as obnoxious as he was an easy target, but I still can't believe that no one reacted when Brent stood up in a flash of rage and chucked a full, unopened gallon of milk at Neil's face from about five feet away, crumbling him to a pitiful puddle of tears, blood, and non-fat milk.
The work crew was depraved. When they didn't have us facing the wall for hours at a time we were digging ditches with spoons, only to fill them back in again.
We made huge piles of heavy rocks taken from the field, the field that both surrounded and contained us, only to be told to move the massive mound to another location. They worked us in ways redolent of Stalin's gulags.
There was an agonizing week of all-day sod laying - with bits of mud and grass sticking to the inside of my wool dress - in preparation for some ceremony the work crew boys weren't privy to. The Scarecrow Festival was even worse. We worked for weeks from eight in the morning till eight at night in preparation and to take down that contrived fall carnival/ fundraiser. Boys wished for death. There was also a dry-cleaning service that they operated somewhere in town, which was supposedly much better than any job on campus - even kitchen duty.
Getting off from work crew meant school during the day, and considerably less work. Some sadist there created a t-shirt caste system that involved wearing either a blue t-shirt or green t-shirt. "Blue shirts" could talk, receive letters (which were opened and read first), talk to their parents, and possibly go off campus.
"Green shirts" were allowed into school, but that was about it. No speaking, sitting, or anything but working or reading LDS literature. A "green shirt" was forced to read the Book of Mormon, in particular the first 22 chapters. We were interviewed by one of the four full-time Mormon missionaries that worked there and had to paraphrase all of "First Nephi" before receiving a blue t-shirt. What good derives from reading the Book of Mormon under duress is anyone's guess, but I did it. I had to.
I had to go to church and seminary too.
It turns out that any form of decadence - smoking a little grass, telling your math teacher to sit on it, being gay or bi-curious, sexually assaulting a family member or young girl - is curable by a little hard work, tough love, and Mormon doctrine. Boys with "sexual issues" are housed together in what could only be some cruel showing of satire.
They were constantly being caught jerking each other off onto each other, or, more tragically, assaulting younger boys. Whatever it was, they would be shoved into blankets and thrown on work crew. On Tuesday night they would meet with all the boys with sexual issues and provide remedies like IcyHot on the penis to stifle homosexual urges.
I was kept there until they couldn't keep me any longer, and on my 18th birthday I walked out the front doors into a cold October morning with nowhere to go and nothing but my freedom. If I didn't experience it myself I would not believe a place like this exists. A Mormon gulag.
How do they get away with all of the abuse? The forced religion, the stifling of freedom of speech? Was it legal to prevent us from reporting abuse to authorities, or to restrain us with ropes, wool blankets, and duct tape? Is it legal to force young boys to talk about masturbation with Mormon clergy and missionaries? How does all of this go unnoticed? We were young and naive and didn't know that most of what they did to us was illegal. Buttars was famous for telling us that we had only three rights: food, safety, and shelter. They failed to even live up to those standards.
Besides being callow, we hardly had the chance to report any abuse. They instruct parents to ignore any claims of abuse from their children. They call any complaints from children a manipulation tool - "fear factor" - and instruct parents to be wary of the "tactic" they say they encounter most.
There were also no phones to call the police. No nurses or medical examiners to talk to. No government authorities to check in on us. Incongruously, this Orwellian facility desperately needs government oversight.
Sen. Buttars said it all when he told a reporter, "What sets us apart is that we're the only residential treatment facility that doesn't seek or accept government funding. If we did, they'd control us."
quote:We were interviewed by one of the four full-time Mormon missionaries that worked there and had to paraphrase all of "First Nephi" before receiving a blue t-shirt.
This is the only bit in the article that seems to tie the camp to some sort of sanction by the Church; and I'm having a difficult time believing that full-time missionaries worked on the ranch.
The camp sounds like it's in direct violation of a number of Church policies, not to mention commandments and doctrines.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Buttars' association with anything is basically proof of its evil. I'm being mostly serious. The man has some really twisted priorities.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Hm... I don't know about that, Tom. I mean, as far as his wikipedia page is concerned, he's got a chronically offensive mouth; otherwise he seems pretty run-of-the-mill, GOP conservative.
Posts: 14554 | Registered: Dec 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
"essentially tied" baloney. The presense of an LDS church member does NOT equal a church-sanctioned anything.
I don't believe for a second the missionaries are part of this. They have better things to do, and there isn't that kind of flexibility.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well, there is more flexibility for missionary couples, who are engaged in many activities beyond proselyting. But I certainly hope that the author is mistaken and that it was not LDS missionaries who were there. *shudder* If they were, I would find it hard to believe that they understood all of the tactics used by this organization.
Posts: 3149 | Registered: Jul 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I don't buy everything this guy is saying. He exaggerates that mutual is three hours long on wednesday night, when in reality its usually an hour or less....
Obviously not a big piece of the puzzle, but it leads to me suspect that he's stretching everything
Posts: 332 | Registered: Apr 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
This writer is in the long time tradition (mostly started by Evangelical Christians) that any organization that has Mormons in it is automatically supported or lead by the Mormon Church and its leadership. At any rate, I don't believe even half of this. It is as equally hateful of Mormons and religion as the gulag experiences. That translates into bigotry and agenda more than facts.
Posts: 2207 | Registered: Oct 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
In fairness to the writer, I can understand why being forced to read the Book of Mormon might produce a mental association with the LDS church.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
That's putting the bar pretty low for logical thought and truth in journalism. It's like saying being forced to read To Kill a Mockingbird creates the impression that it is sponsored by the state of Alabama.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
posted
Not really....to kill a mockingbird isn't the primary text of the state of Alabama. The Book of Mormon exists, and was created by, Mormon's.
That being said, I HIGHLY doubt the LDS church was involved at all in this, it sounds like complete bull, and not just because of the people I have met here.
Posts: 15082 | Registered: Jul 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Well, no. It creates the impression that it's sponsored by some group that wants you to read To Kill A Mockingbird. The state of Alabama would not be my first culprit.
And yet, were I asked to list groups who want me to read the Book of Mormon, the LDS Church would be very high on my list. Certainly it would be hard to argue that the group operating this camp does not consider itself to be an ally of the church. That's unfair to the church, obviously, but I don't think the writer is making the distinction between Utah Mormon culture and the LDS church that we see so many Mormons themselves struggle to maintain. It's been my observation that many ex-Mormons make this mistake.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by katharina: ... wild-child teenage facilities ...
Wild-child facilities? Plural? There's a category for this?
I must admit, out of curiosity I'm trying to find the Canadian equivalent via google and not having much luck.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
There are enough inconsistencies in this story for me to doubt its veracity as a whole.
Child abuse is illegal whether its a government facility or not. If indeed there is evidence of systematic abuse and torture of children in this facility, I'd like to see everyone involved from Chris Buttars down to the parents who ignored complaints of abuse prosecuted.
I know this place was in trouble with the IRS and lots of accusations of abuse have been made. What's unclear is a) how much evidence their is to substantiate the claims or whether this is a vendetta against the place by those who disagree with its goals and b) whether there was any involvement of the LDS church beyond the fact that Chris Buttars and many associated with it are LDS.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by katharina: That's putting the bar pretty low for logical thought and truth in journalism. It's like saying being forced to read To Kill a Mockingbird creates the impression that it is sponsored by the state of Alabama.
That's possibly the worst analogy ever made in the history of life on Earth. Including Raptors. Yes. Raptors!
And as was said before, even if this were journalism, logical thought and objectivity are not always very highly valued. If you consider the bar to be, say, a Pulitzer, then I can think of one article that is neither objective nor at all logical that won this past year. We had a discussion about it at the time.
Posts: 9912 | Registered: Nov 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Like Rabbit, I found myself rather skeptical on reading this thing. Granting that children are unlikely to report abuse while it's going on, here is this man who is apparently out of the camp, relating his experiences to... some random Internet site? Dude, child abuse remains illegal even in the state of Utah. Are there no police, no child-protection authorities? Don't tell the Internet, tell the dang law! Get your revenge by helping the current victims, not writing propaganda that will be forgotten tomorrow!
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Child abuse is illegal whether its a government facility or not. If indeed there is evidence of systematic abuse and torture of children in this facility, I'd like to see everyone involved from Chris Buttars down to the parents who ignored complaints of abuse prosecuted.
The reason why I call this Tranquility Bay II is because stories of organizations like these have already been repeatedly substantiated and they're every bit as horrible as the author makes them out to be. They certainly exist, they've been around for a long time, and already other former prisoners have substantiated this guy's claims.
EXA:
quote:I was at the Boys Ranch during the same time period as Eric, the author. I was there from the time I was 15 until I was 18 with a small break when I was 16. I am now married, have a daughter and have a career in law enforcement. Safe to say that I am an entirely different person than who I was at that time. I can honestly say and put my reputation on the line saying that the statements made in the article are well within the realm of believability. While I did not witness every event that Eric speaks of in his article I witnessed plenty of my own.
One thing that anyone reading this article or any comment given by an individual that was there needs to take into consideration is that the majority of you can not imagine how terrifiying it is at 15 (or any age) to be blindly thrown into a situation like that, no understanding of what is happening or why. There are many people that have been employed by the UBR that took advantage of this and some that enjoyed it.
I personally was "restrained" as they would call it, multiple times in situations that were entirely out of line. I know for fact that the only time a law enforcement officer is allowed to legally use any type of force is when an individual is posing an immediate threat to themselves or others. I would imagine that the same would hold true with youth centers such as this but was applied to get compliance with directions, to obtain certain "attitudes" and often just because something was said that irritated them. Frequently pressure points were applied as well as painful twisting of body extensions, and at times blunt force i.e. hitting, slamming on ground or wall. I can think of a couple times where foreign objects were used. One such time involved a staff member, a shovel and a boy who was at the time 13. This is just a small portion and only one type of abuse that I personaly witnessed.
.
quote:whether there was any involvement of the LDS church beyond the fact that Chris Buttars and many associated with it are LDS.
The church is the biggest financier. Board of directors is comprised of prominent lds families, including the aforementioned politicians and the director of religion at BYU. There's LDS employees on campus. Missionaries, seminary teachers, a possible bishropric. Nearly all, if not all, of the staff, are LDS.
What the Church's organized response will be is vehemently deny that it is actually a product of the church and they will concentrate on talking about lack of culpability through 'official' connection to the Church of Mormon. They'll try to pass it off as being a private practice that you can't tie to the official church. The controversy will remain, however, based on the notion that this organization could only really operate without the acceptance of the church, including but certainly not limited to providing missionaries for the place.
The author's official position is that the ranch acts in a way that is 'diametrically opposed' to church teachings and he believes that while the facility has been funded and supported by the church, there exists no reason to believe that the Mormon leaders had sufficient knowledge of the abusive, unethical, and illegal operations of this ranch, and that now it is necessary for the church to officially condemn this place and end all ways in which it supports and permits the organization to exist.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
"The church is the biggest financier." I highly doubt that. Do you have any proof to anything you are saying? - other than comments on a blog. Give me a break...
Posts: 571 | Registered: Mar 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Suppose for a moment that your church did turn out to be the biggest financier. What would you do?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:based on the notion that this organization could only really operate without the acceptance of the church,
What? Why? Because it takes place in Utah? There is no proof anywhere that the church has anything to do with it, and THAT fact is what is being held up as proof that the church actually does?
You know that Utah isn't actually run by the church, right? That there is a secular government?
I can't believe your post is sincere. You've got to be joking.
quote:Nearly all, if not all, of the staff, are LDS.
So what? Nearly all of the staff of Hatrack.com are LDS. The chuch doesn't own or run this either.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Suppose for a moment that your church did turn out to be the biggest financier. What would you do?
If the church was the biggest financier and these things really happened, I would expect the church to condemn the acts, fire the people responsible, and help law enforcement to procecute those that did illegal things.
The church doesn't allow sunday school classes for young kids to be taught by one man, so I would guess that they are pretty careful with other things that could lead to abuse...
Posts: 571 | Registered: Mar 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Scott R: ... I'm having a difficult time believing that full-time missionaries worked on the ranch.
quote:Originally posted by katharina: I don't believe for a second the missionaries are part of this. They have better things to do, and there isn't that kind of flexibility.
Believe it. This is from a pretty sympathetic source.
quote: Buttars makes no excuses. Boys coming into the program must consult with their parents and declare some Christian religion so religious counselors can be assigned along with professional staff.
"Our entire focus is to put these kids in touch with their spiritual foundations and help them learn to manage and control their concerns in such a way that life works for them, for their family and for society," he said.
"Anything less is unacceptable," the director added. "We strongly believe that, in the absence of such a foundation, a boy will fail."
Two full-time missionary couples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and two seminary teachers have been assigned to work with LDS youths. Other faiths provide clergy who also act as spiritual and moral advisers and to teach Bible studies.
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: ... The church is the biggest financier.
Apparently not directly anyways:
quote: Monthly tuition is $2,500 and while some insurance programs and some church groups help out, parents and family members carry most of the financial burden.
With a stay at the ranch averaging between six and nine months, that puts the average price tag at between $15,000 and $22,500.
"Some parents have mortgaged their homes to put their boys here," Baird said. "But what price do you put on the life of a boy?"
...
While the school's $2.5 million a year operational budget is supported through tuitions, nearly all construction and its scholarships are funded by private donations and foundation gifts. The Scarecrow Festival at Gardner Village, for example, raises about $250,000 annually for scholarships for youths needing financial aid.
quote:What? Why? Because it takes place in Utah? There is no proof anywhere that the church has anything to do with it, and THAT fact is what is being held up as proof that the church actually does?
Nobody is making that argument. "Because it takes place in Utah" doesn't even reference the actual argument made. You're basically savaging a conjured concept.
There are far more compelling arguments being actually made, such as the presence of missionaries and seminary teachers working there full-time.
quote:I can't believe your post is sincere. You've got to be joking.
It is possibly because you've managed to misread or invent portions of it. Trust me, I wouldn't say what you've insinuated of me. You may find my post a little bit more sincere if you take the time to interpret only what I've said, not what arguments I haven't made.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by King of Men: Suppose for a moment that your church did turn out to be the biggest financier. What would you do?
If it were true that the Church actually did finance and run a place like that, I would be pretty shocked, to put it mildly. I would want to know what the purpose of it was and why it went so contrary to the Church's long-established views on raising and teaching youth. I'd also want a more complete perspective on the place besides the one presented by the author. I would work against Church support of such a thing. Would I leave the Church and become a critic of the Church? No.
Personally, I think the whole idea of a place like this is wrong, or gotten terribly out of hand, the way it is described here. It goes contrary to the basic teachings of the Church about freedom of choice and love. I do not think the leadership of the Church is so two-faced as to support it; otherwise, the account and idea of it are being very skewed by the story.
Posts: 5957 | Registered: Oct 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
Did the missionaries or seminary teachers commit any of the violations? Did they witness them? Also, why are the LDS clergy being singled out when other clergy were also involved?
Posts: 2223 | Registered: Mar 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:I would want to know what the purpose of it was and why it went so contrary to the Church's long-established views on raising and teaching youth.
What would you do with this information? There seem to be two outcomes: One, you accept that the church had good reasons for its actions; two, you conclude that the church had made a fundamental mistake. What sort of information would convince you of the first, and what action would you take in the second?
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
My stepmother has a friend whose church is to teach Sunday School at a nearby prison.
That doesn't mean the church owns the prison.
So, to be clear, there are people there from the church serving as chaplains, and on that basis you have decided the church owns and operates the facility?
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
| IP: Logged |
quote: I do not think the leadership of the Church is so two-faced as to support it; otherwise, the account and idea of it are being very skewed by the story.
Hinkley got bulletins from the Utah Boys Ranch as early as 1996. He certainly seemed to support the place. The argument of the article's author is that the mormon leadership simply didn't know about what actually went on in those places and if they had they would have withdrawn support, much like some faiths withdrew support from WWASPS.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
(This was in response to the "all GOP are evil" post.)
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
