Who says you can’t make lemonade out of lemons? It doesn’t matter how egregious the situation, with the proper marketing, there’s money to be made.

A couple of months back, the legacy media (and the blogosphere) was all a-twitter about the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Texas, and their predilection toward marrying off their youngun’s at an early age. Perpetuating the cult, as it were. The authorities intervened, and hundreds of children were taken into state custody to protect them from their cult leaders.

Since then, the Texas courts have ruled that the state had no business taking the children from their parents, in the absence of hard evidence of abuse. Now, reasonable people can argue that marrying off a 13 year old girl to a forty year old man would constitute pedophilia writ large. And it’s hard to contest that argument. The problem is: no evidence was ever presented that this was actually happening, or that the alleged pregnant teenager that kicked off this whole bruhaha (again, allegedly married to an older man in the cult) was a true story.

It’s not that something wasn’t weird here. There’s certainly room for questioning the motivations of the cult, particularly with any child below the age of legal consent. Still, as of last week, the children taken from the FLDS compound were being returned (rightfully) to their parents.

And now, the marketing opportunities emerge. My guess is that the FLDS has already inked a deal with some production company to create a television documentary (or movie) of the situation in Texas. It only makes sense. The prurient interest alone would draw high ratings on HBO or in a movie theater near you. Perhaps HBO could market the “expose” of FLDS in conjunction with the next season of Big Love. But, FLDS is not waiting for the glacial speed of Hollywood production.

They’ve got a new website up to market traditional LDS clothing! I am really sensing a developing fashion trend here.