The kids are crying because they don't want to leave their schools and friends. The family abandons its large house in a short, four-day time window and suffers extraordinary adversity even while simply trying to make the trip. The refugees arrive in Vegas with no permanent place to live.
I'm still stuck with some lingering questions -
Did the police or prosecutor threaten the Browns ("Leave town or face prosecution !! ")?
Did the Browns not know that leaving the state to avoid prosecution would not make the guilt or allegations go away?
Is the Utah County prosecutor laughing his head off?
Is Shurtleff sighing a big sigh of relief?
What I liked about this episode is that it highlighted the crux of the problem - a stupid law. Here is a set of five adults, all ostensibly guilty of felony bigamy, and they are all petrified that the police will be knocking at their door and handcuffing them. The kids are worried that daddy is going to jail. As the caravan of cars, vans and trailers limps clumsily out of town (all the while being filmed), there is no car chase, no set of road blocks - just a big prosecutorial anti-climax (makes for nail-biting entertainment, though).
To this day, we haven't heard a definitive word from Utah law enforcement on this matter (nor will we). Under no circumstances was law enforcement going to hand the polygamists a perfect test case - neither was it going to admit that it dreaded an arrest more than the Browns did. The fact that it was able to bluff the Browns into fleeing was a monumental coup. It took the pressure off of law enforcement, saving it from having to come out publicly and affirm that it categorically refuses to uphold the religious polyga-bigamy statute. This just puts the onus on the next poor, visible polygamous family to stare down the state and refuse to scram out of Dodge.
The Browns deserve a medal for portraying the human realities of this socio-political persecution. Perhaps the show's sincere 2.5 million viewers will lean towards supporting the decriminalization of what has already been effectually decriminalized - sexual freedom for adults.If I were an extra-terrestrial (rather than just an Arizonan) observer, I would wonder how a pretty, great State such as Utah could wax so pious, hypocritical and tyrannical in 100 short years. I would wonder how a Church that once risked all (even fleeing from bigotry and persecution in Missouri and Illinois) to find refuge in the Rockies, could now commit the very same travesty and eat its own young.
I am prompted to wonder if such despicable human wickedness is squarely symptomatic of the Telestial condition. Makes me long for the Terrestrial phase on our prophetic horizon.
Go Kody!
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