Seventy brides for seven brothers

From an interview by the Arkansas Department of Human Services with an unidentified seventeen-year-old girl, one of six taken into custody during a September 20 raid of the Tony Alamo Christian Ministries compound in Fouke, Arkansas. Videos of interviews with the girls were sent anonymously to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, which published excerpts in January. Alamo, an evangelist, is currently awaiting trial on charges of transporting minors across state lines for sexual purposes.

interviewer: Can you tell me in your own words what it means to tell the truth?
girl: I don’t know how to explain it. Just tell the truth, because if you lie you go to hell.
interviewer: What does it mean to tell a lie?
girl: Well, say the government told this man to assassinate our pastor, but he didn’t want to because he saw that we were squeaky clean and that my pastor preached only the true word of God, and so they put up false charges saying he murdered someone, but there was no evidence. There wasn’t a body or anything. That’s a lie.
interviewer: That was a lie?
girl: Yes. And the government has lied about other things about our pastor, saying he’s abusing kids, which is a dirty lie, and taking us away from our home.
interviewer: Who’s saying that he abuses kids?
girl: We went to this place that says, “Speak up for,” whatever, “abuse.” Whatever. And I get the hint that they took us away because they think our pastor’s, like, abusing us and raping us, which, believe me, if someone was abusing me or doing something, I would say something about it. I’m not the type of person that just keeps my mouth shut, because I do have a temper when it comes to things like that.
interviewer: Do you know why you’re here today?
girl: Because the pastor is supposedly abusing us. That’s as far as I can get. People won’t tell me anything. They lied to all of us, saying we were only going to spend the night and go back to our parents, and that we would be together. And then they took us off to the boonies.
interviewer: Okay. So, what happened?
girl: I was in the back yard, and all of a sudden there’s all these men pounding at the gate telling me to open it. I was like, “What?” I said, “This is private property.” So I went and told an adult, and before I knew it a guy came over with machine guns and the FBI and all this stuff, and I’m like, “What is going on?” So they escorted us inside the house, and they made us sit there as if we were criminals. Then they asked us all these questions. And then they told me to pack a bag or whatever. So I walked to the office, and there’s a bunch of men in there going through all the papers and the computers. You’d think there was drugs there or bombs or something. They just do that because we’re born-again Christians. And then we left, driving over to that armory place or whatever.
interviewer: Tell me about your pastor.
girl: Well, he’s a worldwide pastor, and he preaches the true Gospel of the Lord, Jesus Christ. The pastor doesn’t care what people think about him or what the government thinks about him, because he fears God and doesn’t fear man. He wants the Lord to be proud of him. He wants to make it to heaven, so he doesn’t care what people think and say about him. He just preaches the true Gospel, the way it is. I admire him for that. He’s the best person I’ve ever known. If you need shoes or clothes or anything, then he gets it for you. He’s a very good, spiritual man.
interviewer: So, what does he teach you?
girl: Well, the Gospel. If you sin, you’re gonna go to hell, and you can’t commit adultery, you cannot fornicate. You know, it’s the Bible.
interviewer: What else does your pastor teach about the Bible?
girl: Well, I know a bunch of people don’t agree with this, but one man, if the Lord wants him to, can have as many wives as the Lord gives him. In the Old Testament, the Lord gave Abraham four wives, and that was okay with God because, you know, whatever God wants to do. What is man to say, “No, God can’t do this”? God can burn this whole earth whenever He wants to, and He’s going to do it.
interviewer: So a man can have more than one wife, because Abraham—
girl: Abraham, yes, and all the other ones. Gideon had like seventy sons, not including daughters, and our pastor said just recently, like, “Do you think that one wife had seventy sons?” Of course not.
interviewer: Are there any other things that he agrees with?
girl: The Lord said that a woman can be married at puberty, and, of course, this government, they’re all crazy, and they want teenagers to go out and commit fornication, so they make them wait till they’re eighteen. Our pastor said that one woman has been with about a hundred, two hundred men by then. The Lord said that they could be married at puberty, and this government—Satan doesn’t want that because he wants the world to be corrupt.
interviewer: Are there girls who have been married at puberty?
girl: No, because of what the government says.
interviewer: Because of what the government says? And what does the government say?
girl: That they can’t, they’re gonna put them in jail, and all this other garbage. The Lord says that they can.

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