'Cultural guide' helps Texans understand FLDS children

A newly released "cultural awareness guide" says FLDS children in Texas state custody have made derogatory comments to "staff of color" and women wearing jewelry.

The guide also indicates that boys taken from the YFZ Ranch have been "upset" over men with facial hair and men who aren't wearing long-sleeved shirts.

The guide was posted Friday on the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services Web site. It lists unique cultural and behavioral practices and beliefs of the Fundamentalist LDS Church and is designed to help workers better understand and communicate with the children. Information for the guide was collected from law enforcement and child welfare agencies in Utah and Arizona as well as former FLDS members, said Patrick Crimmins, spokesman for the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services.

The guide indicated that children, particularly young boys, made "derogatory remarks to staff of color" since they were taken from the ranch. The guide is dated April 22, the same day the first group of about 100 children was taken from a temporary shelter and bused to foster care facilities. All the children have since been placed in such facilities throughout the state.

Carolyn Jessop said she's not surprised at such comments.

"Warren Jeffs has been so racist," she said of the sect's spiritual leader, who is now in an Arizona jail. "What he was programming into kids was scary."

Jessop, who grew up in the FLDS community in southern Utah and Arizona, said some of her children attended Jeffs' private school before she and her eight children escaped the lifestyle. One day her children told her, "If you had as much as a drop of Jewish blood in you, you couldn't enter the kingdom of God," she recalled.

"I said that 'we're in big trouble,' because my patriarchal blessing says the blood of Christ runs through my veins — and he was Jewish," Jessop said.

After leaving the sect and moving to Salt Lake City, she said her children continued to express similar views for a while but "got over it pretty fast."

As to children making negative comments concerning women wearing jewelry, Jessop said jewelry is considered vain and is taboo in the FLDS faith. Pierced ears, too, are frowned upon.

"That's like sinning against God, to maim your body like that," she said.

Also, FLDS men are required to shave and keep their hair short. "To grow a beard is a sign of immorality," Jessop explained.

Attorney Rod Parker, a spokesman for the FLDS Church, said much of the information in the guide comes from critics of the church.