Eldorado, USA - Ever since a polygamous sect settled on a ranch near this West Texas town, residents have complained about its practice of plural marriage.
Now, many have another objection to the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints: Its leader's purported views on blacks.
In tape recordings apparently made in the mid- to late 1990s, FLDS President Warren Jeffs identifies blacks as the "seed of Cain" and "uncouth or rude and filthy." In addition, Jeffs warns against interracial relationships, saying they could lead to the loss of priesthood blessings.
The reaction from local listeners has been shock and disgust, said Eldorado Success editor and publisher Randy Mankin, who has posted audio clips of the recordings on the weekly paper's Web site. "It just confirms what they already thought of" Jeffs, he said.
In one audio clip, identified as a lecture Jeffs gave to a group of teachers, he talks about rock 'n' roll and claims the Beatles were trained by a gay black man. Until then, members of the British group were just "pingy pangy" singers with no following, but became successful after learning the black style of music, Jeffs contends.
Gary Engels, an investigator for the Mohave (Ariz.) County attorney, has made several of the tapes available to news media as well as the attorneys general in Utah and Arizona.
Jeffs taped numerous lessons for students at Alta Academy, the private school in Salt Lake City where he once served as principal, said Ezra Draper, of Bonner's Ferry, Idaho, who parted ways with Jeffs in 2003. Many were used in girls' home economics classes.
As parents got word of the tapes, they also requested copies. "It got to the point if they didn't have the tapes and listen to them in their own families, you were not on track with the new teachings being offered by the [FLDS] presidency," Draper said.
Some parents were alarmed by what they heard on the tapes, Draper said, and that their children were exposed to such teachings regularly at school.
"They were quite offended and disappointed in Warren taking on teachings that were extreme and, quite frankly, would not help you be a better person to a whole race of people," he said.
The comments about black people come from a recording Jeffs made for an "Ancient Priesthood History Class" attended by eighth-grade boys and girls, Draper said.
The FLDS, like other fundamentalist groups who adhere to early Mormon teachings, believe the mainstream LDS Church erred when it extended the priesthood to blacks in 1978.
For the FLDS, that view became more radical under Jeffs, who began to preach that members risked their salvation by associating with or consuming any aspect of black culture.
"Leave off their dress, their music, their styles, their fashions, the way they think, what they do because you can trace back a connection with filthy, immoral people," he says on one recording.