The FLDS and the Color Red

Recently, we've had a look inside a group of people with very unusual beliefs, the polygamist Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints (FLDS) at the Yearning for Zion ranch in Texas. One insignificant detail has come up in a variety of contexts, and that is that they do not believe in wearing the color red. People who will be caring for the 462 children taken from the Yearning for Zion ranch have been given a memo from the Texas Department of Child Protective Services specifically stating that red is not acceptable for their clothing.

The color red gets a pretty bad rap anyway. Red with shame, red hot, caught red-handed, red tape, red alert... and when was the last time you said anything good about a red light? (Don't even think about a red light district.) Valentine's Day is associated with red, but so is revolution. And the devil is typically shown to be red.

But, for the FLDS, the color red does not have all these bad associations. Instead, they believe that Jesus will return wearing red robes, and that that color should, therefore, be reserved for him alone. The symbolism is jarring, because traditionally, Jesus was associated with white for purity and purple, a color reserved for kings.

Blood, of course, is red, and perhaps the FLDS believers associate the color with the blood of Jesus. People with many different beliefs associate red with blood in various rituals associated with hunting, as well as with observances following death by violence.

Blood is also associated with menstruation, and so wearing red is sometimes prohibited for young men. But, if the association with bloody violence is stronger, young men may be marked with red.

The color red seems to have a power of its own, to stand out among colors. According to Brent Berlin and Paul Kay, authors of Basic Color Terms: Their Universality and Evolution, red is the first color, after black and white, to be given a name.

No matter what one may think about the FLDS polygamists of the Yearning for Zion ranch, they have tapped into something very deep and primal in their injunction against the color red. The Texas Department of Child Protective Services certainly has a difficult job to care for the children, while respecting their beliefs, and as hard as it may be for those of us who are not members of the FLDS to understand their beliefs, we have to hope that the children will be treated with compassion and dignity.