Krakauer still vexed by FLDS

A year ago Jon Krakauer told the more than 800 people crammed into a Utah movie theater for a reading of his book, "Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith," that he wasn't pursuing social reform when he wrote about religious extremism.

Since then, he has so deeply immersed himself in the distressed lives of members and former members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints that he no longer will write about the polygamous sect that inhabits twin towns on the Utah-Arizona border.

"I've been asked to help a lot of people who feel they've been victimized by this culture," Krakauer told the Associated Press on Friday in a rare interview. "I just keep getting drawn deeper and deeper into this."

By "this," Krakauer means the religious politics of FLDS and its leader-prophet, Warren Jeffs, who reportedly has banished hundreds of men and boys from Hildale and Colorado City, Ariz., in a struggle for control over the sect, whose estimated 6,000 to 12,000 members make it the largest polygamous group in the West.

Krakauer's best-selling book on religious extremism focused on the 1984 cold-blooded murders of Brenda Lafferty and her 15-month-old daughter, Erica, in American Fork. He will be in Salt Lake City on Saturday to lend weight to an organization calling itself Diversity, founded by former polygamist Dr. Dan Fischer.

Fischer, the Midvale dentist who invented the tooth-bleaching product Ultradent, and his group have pledged to help some 400 boys ages 13 to 21 who have been banished or excommunicated from the FLDS.

Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who will appear with Krakauer and Fischer at a Capitol news conference with some of the youngsters they call the "lost boys," said he met Fischer about a year ago. Shurtleff said Fischer has been providing housing and financial support for the boys, whom Shurtleff called victims.

That's how Krakauer sees them, too.

"Boys are fined and harassed by the police, who are sworn to uphold the law but serve as minions of Warren Jeffs," Krakauer said. "Hundreds of these boys over the past four years have been cast out. Most of them end up on the streets of (Las) Vegas or St. George," where they turn to drugs or prostitution.

While most have been kicked out of the community ostensibly for misbehavior, Krakauer said the real problem is plain: The creed says a man must be a polygamist to achieve godly approval. But when 50 percent of the population is male, the surplus must be jettisoned.

The boys are virtually helpless in the normal world because they know nothing of it except the evil that will befall them should they venture away from Short Creek, the old name for the twin towns, Krakauer said. " 'You will be ground into native element' is one of their phrases. It is drummed into their heads they don't stand a chance out there," he said. "These kids are programmed to fail."

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