AS MENTIONED OVER RECENT DAYS IN TAKING NOTE OF THE RECENT RAID OF THE FLDS COMPOUND NEAR ELDORADO, TEXAS, with its ensuing removal of over 400 women and young girls thus resident and referral to child-welfare agencies, certain specimens of the Religiopolitical Right are probably spreading their rather lame-sounding and reechy meme of "Christian Persecution! Christian Persecution!" as their take on developments.

But it turns out that this new episode of perceived "Christian Persecution!" (as the Elmer Gantry Institute of Religiopolitical Studies would likely handle this) carries a darker side, as the Southern Poverty Law Centre notes in their Hatewatch blog:

Three days after the raid of a polygamist compound in Eldorado, Texas, the media is still atwitter about the arrest and search warrants served at the YFZ (Yearning For Zion) ranch, which was occupied by 400 followers of Warren Jeffs, the incarcerated "prophet" of the Fundamentalist Church of the Latter Day Saints.

But so far none of the dozens of stories and broadcast segments about Texas authorities taking 219 children and women from the YFZ compound into protective custody have even mentioned the fact that along with advocating child brides and plural marriage, FLDS doctrine is venomous with anti-black racism.

As described in a major feature on the FLDS published in the Spring 2005 issue of the Intelligence Report, Jeffs preaches to his estimated 10,000 followers that all blacks are the descendants of Cain, "cursed with a black skin," and selected by God to be the "servants of servants." It was on the basis of that unvarnished racism, preached as official FLDS doctrine, that the Southern Poverty Law Center began listing FLDS as a hate group in 2005.

Jeffs describes as a victory for the devil the day in 1978 that leaders of the legitimate Church of Latter Day Saints—known to much of the world as the Mormon Church—decided to allow blacks to become priests. FLDS had first split from the main church in 1890 after Mormon officials renounced polygamy under pressure from the government.

"The black race is the people through which the devil has always been able to bring evil unto the earth," Jeffs preached in one recorded sermon obtained by Hatewatch.

"And why did [the Negro race] pass through the flood?" the FLDS prophet asked. "Because it was necessary that the devil should have a representation upon the earth as well as God."

To download an MP3 file of Jeffs sermonizing on "Negroes" and the biblical story of the flood, click here.

To read more of his comments on blacks, as well as on homosexuality, violence, the role of women and the end of the world, click here.

Now what does the "Christian Persecution!" element have to say with these new developments?