Ex-FLDS mayor heartsick over Texas 'Gestapo' raid
"I'm not a member any longer (of the church). I was cut off, but I have to speak out," said Barlow, 75, who was 21 at the time of a similar raid conducted by Arizona officials in 1953 on families living in Short Creek, a polygamous settlement on the Utah-Arizona border now known as Hildale and Colorado City.
"This is so much like an ethnic cleansing, to persecute these people," Barlow said.
Barlow said he happened to be in Jerusalem, enjoying a two-week tour of the area, when he picked up an English-language newspaper and saw the headlines about the Texas raid on the Yearning for Zion Ranch.
"I'll tell you the truth, as soon as I saw that I called home," he said. "All the same, old emotions came back into my heart and mind. It's the very same thing they did in 1953."
Barlow said the flood of memories was so strong, he knew he had to do something "to help the young people at that ranch."
"Many of those young people aren't in plural marriage, they're just young people trying to live right," he said. "Those children have got to be put back with their mothers. This is so wrong."
"I don't know what can be done, but I have to try and help," he said. "This is wrong. Texas should not be acting like the Gestapo."
Barlow's memories of the 1953 raid haunt him to this day. He was one of several dozen men arrested and jailed by Arizona officers.
"I had a 10-day-old baby girl, and a police officer told me he had a court order to take her away from me," he recalled. "They said I was teaching her to break the laws of the land."
Barlow served as mayor of Colorado City for 18 years before resigning his elected position and leaving the community, all at the behest of Jeffs who was the spiritual leader of the FLDS Church at the time but who is now facing criminal charges in Arizona, accusing him of performing child-bride marriages. He was convicted last year in Utah of rape as an accomplice, stemming from a marriage he performed between a 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old cousin.
Once a frequent participant and widely liked leader among his peers in local Republican politics, Barlow, 75, practically disappeared from public view. He has lived a quiet life since being excommunicated from his church by Jeffs, who others say was displeased with Barlow's attention to the world beyond his FLDS religion.
Recent comments
I've noticed a huge decrease in the bigoted comments against...
Pastor Don Milton | May 15, 2008 at 4:34 a.m.
ANOTHER exFLDS member saying the same thing- they don't ALL abuse...
deb | April 23, 2008 at 5:19 p.m.
Regardless of what thse people do, their rights are being trampled...
Jodie | April 23, 2008 at 10:01 a.m.
