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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 12, 2022

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There are fundamentalist LDS groups that seem to be pretty similar to the Hasidim, including not officially marrying to avoid taxes and collect additional benefits and using lots of welfare. They are generally located in the middle of nowhere, and there have been efforts to stop them, but as far as I can tell these are mostly limited to prosecution on the basis of serious crimes (like child rape) which I think the Hasidim avoid. Mainline mormons and the mainline LDS church seem to be at best ambivalent about these efforts, and sometimes oppose them. There are some other legal issues that might also apply to the Hasidic communities (like misuse of public funds and effectively having a privatized religious police force) but they might also be better at staying on the "maybe legal" side.

See e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamentalist_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-Day_Saints#Short_Creek_raid and the sections immediately below.

The FLDS practices statutory rape as a religious doctrine. They largely get away with this(although Texas has prosecuted a few of their leaders for not marrying their underaged baby mamas), and from a blue tribe perspective they’re fascist Christian microstate. From a red tribe perspective they’re an untrustworthy, heretical, and occasionally murderous cult.

The other major Mormon fundamentalist group, the apostolic United brethren, colours significantly more inside the lines and avoids underaged marriage.