PEARSON: CBS4's Sallinger witnesses different world of the FLDS
 
By Mike Pearson
Entertainment - Television
Rocky Mountain News
 
Prime choice

It's not often that a secretive religious group invites a television reporter into its midst, yet that's precisely what happened to CBS4's Rick Sallinger, who launches a three-day report at 10 p.m. tonight (through Wednesday) on a Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) group living in southern Colorado.

You might recall FLDS as the pro-polygamy order at the center of a raid on an Eldorado, Texas, compound earlier this year, in which 439 children were taken from their parents and put into protective custody. Most were later returned.

The group's leader, Warren Jeffs, is serving a 10-year prison sentence in Utah for sanctioning underage marriages.

Through contacts at the Salt Lake Tribune, among others, Sallinger was able to contact Lee Steed, an FLDS member who bought five pieces of property in Custer County 21/2 hours south of Denver. There, 20 to 30 FLDS members have been living for the past two to three years, having migrated from Utah and Arizona to avoid what they term "persecution."

Their presence has not gone unnoticed by the townsfolk of Westcliffe, some of whom created a group called Step Up to investigate the controversial religious group. Were the FLDS members practicing polygamy in their midst?

As Sallinger discovered, the answer is probably not. The bulk of the church members living in southern Colorado are elderly widows and grandmothers, some of whom have children tied to the Texas raid, but all of whom spoke of their lives in Colorado in glowing terms.

In Early September, Sallinger was invited to visit one property.

"Never in my wildest dreams did I think we'd be invited inside," says Sallinger. "In that 15 minutes (it took to drive from Westcliffe to one of the FLDS properties), I felt like I'd gone through some kind of time warp - left our world and entered theirs."

The women are canning fruit as Sallinger talks to them about their lives in the church and in Colorado. They deny allegations that the church sanctions abuse of women and children. Mostly they seem astonished by the perceptions of the outside world, though several of the women readily admit to having been part of polygamist marriages.

Sallinger also interviews FLDS detractors, including Laura Chapman, who fled the group in 1991 at age 19. She talks about being raised with "four mothers, one father and 31 brothers and sisters."

Sallinger and CBS4 photographer Eric Blumer spent a day in Custer County filming their report, and the surprise for viewers may be how ordinary their subjects seem.

Sure, their upsweep hairstyles and old-fashioned clothes are quaint, but they have dishwashers, motorized vehicles and a sense of wanting to live their lives undisturbed and uncriticized by the outside world.

What did Sallinger take away from the experience?

"They're walking a fine line between what they see as God's law and man's law. And God's law takes precedence."
 
RockyMountainNews.com
Originally published November 9, 2008
 
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