FLDS interracial-marriage prohibition

The FLDS interracial-marriage prohibition is a religious rule that treats marriage across racial lines as a grave violation of divine law. The book connects the prohibition not only to an explicit threat of punishment, but also to the isolation and teaching through which racial prejudice was passed from one generation to the next. DeLoy Bateman’s account shows how such teaching could persist even after someone had left the community.

Rule and Religious Authority

In the account, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints continued to teach that interracial marriage was a sin whose penalty under God’s law was death. The rule appears within a broader system in which religious authorities set expectations for private life, and questioning those authorities is treated as a challenge to faith. Its force therefore rests not only on the prohibition itself, but on the claim that it expresses divine judgment.

Teaching and Its Effects

DeLoy Bateman says he was taught from childhood that Black people were inferior and not fully human. Colorado City’s isolation meant that he had little opportunity to encounter Black people: he recalls first seeing one as a young adult during a trip to St. George. After leaving the faith, he felt guilt about what he had been taught, but recognized that the prejudice remained difficult to undo. On one occasion, he found himself changing the television channel when Oprah appeared, then understood that his reaction reflected the religion’s teaching rather than a belief he wanted to hold. Bateman said children in the community were still being taught the same ideas.

Relation to Mainstream Mormon Policy

The book presents hostility to interracial marriage as a belief shared by Mormon fundamentalists and their Mormon counterparts. It notes that a 1978 revelation by Spencer W. Kimball reversed the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints’ doctrine barring Black members from the priesthood, while the official church continued to strongly admonish white members against marrying Black people. The comparison distinguishes the fundamentalist teaching’s stated death penalty from the mainstream church’s admonition, while showing that the book regards opposition to interracial marriage as extending beyond the FLDS community.

Significance

The rule links racial classification to religious obedience: a marriage choice is cast not as a matter for the people involved, but as a violation of God’s law. Bateman’s recollection makes the consequences visible at the level of learned perception. Leaving the community did not immediately erase an inherited response; recognizing it as wrong became part of the work of separating his own judgment from what he had been taught.