"Can we all assume that it is not in a teenage girl's interest to be married at 14 or 15 to a stranger who is more than twice her age?"
No. Is Natalie saying a 17 year old does not act in her best interest to marry a 35 year old? An 18 year old does not act in her best interest to marry a 37 year old?
"It is illegal after all."
No, it's not. It's illegal for a teenager to be married to a person twice their age when that person is already married (legally) to another. An example. A legally unmarried 50 year old man goes to Mexico and impregnates a 13 year old girl there, also from this country. He returns to his home in North Carolina, and marries the girl. That's LEGAL. It is another discussion entirely as to whether it's morally right or wrong. Law is not morality. The acts I described are legal and will accomplish the marriage legally.
"If Willie were influencing young women to keep quiet so that the church can get away with criminal acts against teenage girls, can we not all agree that Willie's influence is not in the girls' interests?"
Fallacy of complex question. This is; "has Willie stopped beating his wife?" It's almost three months now since the raid, there are no indictments or charges or arrests or crimes found.
"Who has more motivation to improperly influence Teresa, Willie Jessop or me? Willie is protecting the Church, not protecting Teresa."
If theirs is the true faith, aren't these goals 100% compatible? Who decides then Natalie, what true faith is? YOU?
"If he were truly interested in protecting Teresa (and Annette for that matter) don't you suppose he would counsel Teresa to testify truthfully rather than subject her to this enormous strain?"
He HASN'T done that counselor? Are you not divulging the content of your discussions with Teresa? Are you not breaking NOW the attorney client privilege? If this is a question YOU ask, you answer other questions you should not.
"Don't you think he would encourage the alleged perpetrator to come forward and speak to authorities so that the women and children do not have to bear the entire burden?"
Alleged perpetrator? OF WHAT? Who would come forward? You ask them to prove the NEGATIVE if in fact there is no Crime. WHAT CRIME Natalie? ARREST SOMEONE! YOU are an OFFICER OF THE COURT!
"Just suppose that the reports of underage marriages and child-bearing are true, and I'm not speaking about Teresa here, but speaking generally."
Let's suppose the reports of their being pictures of Natalie Malonis having sex with a barnyard animal are true.....Oh wait, there are no such reports. Ok, Rumor time, let's suppose Natalie Malonis (fill in the blank). Let's suppose Barbara Walthers is embezzeling. Let's suppose she is in collusion with Mary Catharine Nelson to send Rozita Swinton to make false reports about the FLDS. There is in fact far more basis for supposing THAT, than the existance of "underage marriages" and "child abuse" at YFZ.
"Suppose a girl is taught her entire life that plural marriage is the only path to salvation, that the word of the prophet is the word of God, and perfect obedience to men is the way to glorify Heavenly Father."
What if it is? I'm a HYPER Calvinist Natalie. That means I believe there are those destined to hell by the planning of God from before the foundations of time, from before they were created, from before they had a chance to ACT. Is what I believe horrid? It doesn't matter, it's what I believe and it is the right of parents to teach children and instruct them in religious belief. Too bad. Every religion has it's spooky side to those on the outside.
"... and suppose the prophet tells that girl at age 13 that she is to be married that night to a stranger who is close to her father's age, and Heavenly Father is honored by the sealing."
Have we found any of these acts at YFZ?
"Suppose the girl, having never had a discussion about sexual relations, becomes pregnant and has a child when she is 14 years old. That 14 year old girl would tell you she chose to marry and she chose to enter a sexual relationship and bear children. That 14 year old girl would tell you that she is happy and doing what she wants to do. She would tell you that she has never been abused and she has never been forced to do anything."
Yah, yah, and suppose that I am the Queen of England. Monkeys flew out of my butt. Suppose I was on the moon. Was a member of the Beatles. That I caught the biggest fish.
"Then suppose the girl is subpoenaed to testify about those circumstances, and if she lies to protect her husband it will be viewed as an inability to protect her children. It will be seen as a preference to protect her adult husband over her defenseless children. Suppose also that her husband is nowhere to be seen and although there is DNA and a baby that prove what happened, the alleged perpetrator still will not come forward to take any responsibility."
That's a lot of "ifs" there sister. Again you propose the contents of your priveleged discussions with Teresa, and in so doing you break the confidence or just flat out LIE about her. In any case you impugn her character.
"At the same time, the alleged perpetrator and various other trusted and powerful members of the community keep reinforcing the idea that the girl is a traitor to her community and her faith if she tells the truth. The 14 year old girl has internalized the teaching that to betray the church means being shunned and ostracized. She feels as if her very survival is on the line, so she refuses to testify for fear of the consequences."
Again, that's either divulging the contents of your discussions with Teresa, and privileged, or a series of lies. You are impugning her character in any case.
"She knows that she may be taken into detention and she may lose custody of her children if she does not testify truthfully, and she ignores the small voice in her head that tells her that if her husband would come forward and tell what happened, she and her children would not be in this position. Not a word from her husband. She does not even know where he is, and she knows it is not her place to ask or question."
Wow, I hope I never have such an attorney. Like I said, either she's lying, or telling the truth. Either way she's telling you what she wants you to believe transpired in conversations between her and Teresa Jeffs. Either way it's NONE of our business. What next? Does she offer NUDE PHOTOS of Teresa to Playboy? She might as well do so. Even if there are no such photos EVERYONE WOULD BELIEVE that there were after the offer. Just as in this case where anyone who now reads her reply believes that Teresa Jeffs has lost her virginity, been pawed over by an older man, has a child and has been abandoned by that man.
Or it could be that Teresa Jeffs is a virgin and is furious for precisely the reasons that Teresa has outlined in her letters. In any case it is no more my business than naked photos of Teresa, or Natalie or Barbara Walthers. Whether those photos exist, or not. You cannot speculate the existence of such photos as a basis for going to look for them. You have to have evidence.
Let me be clear, I believe Teresa, not Natalie. There is no child. Teresa is a virgin. She is a chaste maiden in her father's house. Natalie feels free to say what she wants and the threat to Teresa is, "IF you REPLY to me publicly, I WILL DIVULGE our PRIVELEGED CONVERSATIONS." Personally I think Natalie is BAITING Teresa. There is something Natalie WANTS to tell Barbara, or has already told Barbara that neither of them can act on. It is PROBABLY a "Spiritual Marriage" to someone. We don't know though. That hardly means that Teresa has consummated that relationship. Whatever it is, Natalie thinks it is material to Barbara's ongoing crusade and wants to tell. The more public the exchange, the more they edge closer to Natalie's threat that Barbara will ask her to testify, and that Natalie will testify to what has been said between her and Teresa.
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2 comments:
I think this interview with Natalie is the final indication of Malonis' character and her ability to act as a lawyer. Nothing more is needed.
I think this whole Malonis affair is a canary in the mineshaft for the whole Texas legal system. The administration won't want any more negative press, so they won't want to see Malonis sanctioned. The higher courts have already exposed the local court as incompetent, so they probably aren't eager to expose Texas to further liability by official sanction. However, they have a psycho lawyer on the loose acting in the name of the state.
If Texas doesn't make this go away quietly, it shows that they are truly desperate, and that putting pressure on this girl Teresa is necessary for them to extricate themselves from this mess.
However, it is so very difficult to predict the actions of the Texas administration. Had they acted rationally in all of this, there never would have been a raid...barring that, they wouldn't have taken all the kids...barring that, they wouldn't have have inprisoned 26 adults claiming they were minors...etc.
And suppose Natalie was talking about the truth in the FLDS instead of imagination of the fiction writer, Stolen Intelligence.
Suppose Carolyn "the UFO lady" Jessop, Flora "the stripper" Jessop, and Stolen Intelligence are telling the truth.
Yeah right.
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