I have a shirt that says, "Honey, anything in my closet could be a Halloween costume." I like to wear it on Halloween, along with one of my funky vintage skirts and a pair of boots from my massive collection of Dr. Martens. A T-shirt, skirt and boots are my regular outfit most days, topped off with a selection of unusual vintage jewelry.

One day last year, a little boy at the supermarket gasped as he laid eyes on me, and loudly told his dad that "she looks like a witch."

I suspect my long skirt, dark hair and angular features contributed to his assessment. I really should have asked that plastic surgeon for a cuter nose.

I'd forgotten about the incident until I saw the recent news about the raid at the fundamentalist Mormon compound in Texas, where hundreds of girls and women were dressed in clothes straight out of an episode of "Little House on the Prairie."

My first thought: "Cool costumes."

Only, to them, it's not a costume. They dress in billowy frontier attire all the time, and their long hair is pinned neatly into a sort of late 19th century Gibson Girl style. I've read interviews with former fundamentalist Mormon women who say that this head-to-toe conformity is just another part of the control exacted by the male-dominated sect — a way to take away the women's individuality, under the guise of giving them a sense of modesty.

But what do the rest of us see in their clothing? The headlines — girls who've barely hit puberty, forced to marry older men and bear their children.

The ick factor is overwhelming.

Their defense is that the clothing, the compound and the polygamy are all part of their religious beliefs. And, in our country, isn't freedom of religion a constitutionally guaranteed right? Not if someone is breaking the law while practicing it. The allegations of child abuse in this case are sickening. If the currently ongoing investigation finds that this stuff is true, then someone needs to go to jail for a very long time.

So let's examine, instead, if clothes really do make the man. Or woman. Or little kid.

Costume as an expression of belief is an integral part of many aspects of our society. There's that standard private-school uniform consisting of white blouse and gray skirt. There's the military attire worn by each branch of our armed forces. And there are the robes donned by clergymen and clergywomen of many denominations. What sets these folks apart from the fundamentalist Mormons is that they can put on a T-shirt and jeans during their downtime and nobody is going to kick them out of the club. They're generally not dressed up for their jobs 24 hours a day.

One could equate the women and children of the polygamist sect — and, to some extent, the men, who aren't allowed to wear short-sleeved shirts — to the Amish or to Orthodox Jews, who also wear traditional clothing out of deference to the tenets of their religions or culture. It's something they're born to.

And it's something that inadvertently caters to the prejudices and preconceptions of those who find it foreign. Some bystanders might just be curious, but others are filled with disgust. It's a tired old cliché — that of judging a book by its cover — but it's forever a part of human nature.

The fact is, we're all wearing a costume of some sort — from the goth kid to the Mervyn's mom — but the prairie girl is always going to be looked upon as weird. Maybe even weirder than that middle-aged woman in the vintage skirt at your supermarket.

— Wendy Dager of Simi Valley writes a biweekly column for The Star.