Elizabeth Smart and the Separation of Church and State

I am a few chapters into Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven, the scariest book I have ever read, and though I intend to blog about it when I am further in, it has brought up many interesting things to think about. My first reaction to the stories of the members of LDS, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints was to be appalled, shocked, and disgusted at these men who marry multiple women, girls actually. They pull thirteen year old girls out of school and force them to marry men who are many times older then them. Well, maybe force is not the right word. These girls have grown up in a culture that considers this act an honor while my culture calls it rape. Many of these girls are pregnant before their fourteenth birthday, as their job in the community is to produce more members for the sect. They call it a way of life, I considered it brainwash.
The case of Elizabeth Smart is an example of this. A fourteen year old girl was kidnapped from her home by a man named Brian David Mitchell. He was convinced that his name was actually Immanuel David Isaiah "and he had been placed on earth to serve as a mouthpiece for the Lord during the Last Days" (Krakauer). He ended up doing some yard work for the Smarts and decided that "God intended [Elizabeth] to be his polygamous wife" (Krakauer). He kidnapped Elizabeth and unbenounced to him, her little sister was awake. Mitchell lead her at knife point a few miles away where his other wife Barzee and him performed a twisted ceremony to bind Elizabeth to him in a polygamous marriage. Then he raped her to consummate it.
The search parties were always within ear shot of the hiding places Elizabeth was kept for two months.
"Using his gift for fundamentalist rhetoric and adroitly manipulating the religious indoctrination Elizabeth had received since she was old enough to talk, Mitchell cowed the girl into becoming an utterly submissive polygamous concubine" (Krakauer) Charles Manson style. Because of Elizabeth's Mormon background, as "she was raised to obey figures of Mormon authority unquestioningly, and to believe that LDS doctrine is the law of God, she would have been particularly susceptible to the dexterous fundamentalist spin Mitchell applied to familiar Mormon scripture" (Krakauer). Mitchell utilized and manipulated the words of Joesph Smith, the prophet and starter of the Mormon faith, to submitting to his "carnal demands" (Krakauer). He became psychologically in control of her and was able to bring her into public or leave her alone without fear that she would run away or even make her presence known. She was missing for nine months and the case was brought up again when Mitchell tried to kidnap another young girl, one of Elizabeth's fifteen year old cousins and failed. At this point, Elizabeth's sister was finally able to express who the kidnapper was and Mitchell was eventually found. When she was questioned directly, Elizabeth denied being who she was, claiming she was eighteen and that Mitchell was his father. Finally, she relented and acknowledged that she was Elizabeth Smart, the kidnapped girl who was missing for nine months. While being tried, Mitchell argued that he was innocent because "forcing a fourteen-year-old girl into polygamous bondage was not a criminal act because it was a 'call from God' "(Krakauer).

I go back and forth about the morals of this predicament. I still believe the situation was wrong, creepy, and disgusting, (by the way, Mitchell was forty nine years old) but who am I to judge this religious tradition? But then again, this was definitely illegal and to me, morally wrong and disturbing. It was detrimental to a young girl's psychological well being and I cannot even imagine myself in her predicament. I would like to think that I would never accept my kidnapper, as Elizabeth did, but I did not have a Mormon upbringing. Does government reign over religion? Or is one's belief in God the most prominent rules and regulations in one's life? Some might argue that God, a benevolent and understanding God, would never want something like this to happen, but then again, there is no way to know God's will, in this situation or any. Where does religion trump the government? There is a supposed separation of church and state, but when does the state step in because the church is participating in actions considered illegal by the government?

Krakauer, Jon. Under the Banner of Heaven. New York: Anchor Books, 2004.

Interview with the family about Elizabeth's return
Another article from when she was found
Apparently a movie was made about the kidnapping, here is a link to IMDB
and there are many books written specifically about the kidnapping.