Despite being a strong sceptic of all religions I admired the fact that the right to religious freedom in the US was not limited to paper. The government does not interfere in how one worships and treats all religions equally. However the recent events at Texas have me wondering.
I believe that some of the stuff that goes on within the FLDS is obnoxious and disgusting. I also believe that it is their right to live as they want to. The state did the right thing by going into the compound and evacuating the children when they received the call, even though now it is being accepted that 16 year old Sarah the caller does not exist*.
However, what happened next would have make have made Stalin and Mao proud.
It is best to untangle the mess to understand it clearly.
April 4 -7: After evacuating the mom and kids the State(Child services, DA and other agencies) tried to verify their identity (biological parents) and check for abuses.
April 13: cell phone were taken away from the women and children to "prevent the possible tampering to witnesses"
April 14: Mothers and children 5 years and older were separated because the State claimed that they were "coaching the children"
April 18: Judge rules that the children be kept by the state and DNA testing performed to confirm maternity and paternity.
After all this the 'evidence' discovered to suggest child abuse are a few pregnant teenage girls.
WOW!! I would expect such a reaction by the State(judge included) in a place like Iran but for it to happen here ......
If one bothers to read a little about the FLDS it is clear that there is no rampant sex abuse in the community. It is not a haven for pedophiles nor are they running a child prostitution ring. What is happening is that in some cases underage girls (14 -17 year old) are being married off to older** men. In fact other than these 'marriages' there is no evidence of child abuse. Instead of separating mothers and kids and putting the kids in foreign environments while the investigations were ongoing the the State could have easily let most live in their homes and kept the men away to prevent abuse. Since the group lives in a compound they could easily have regulated and monitored the contact by men. The handful of young girls who are 'child brides', especially those pregnant, and vulnerable to abused should be the only ones considered for protective custody. If it was not logistically possible to keep mothers and kids in their homes they could easily have used the church (that seems to be large enough) to house them and keep the men out. I see no reason for keeping a 5 year old handicapped boy away from his mother.
What is really surprising is that the self proclaimed 'liberals' have very little so say about the matter - we have have had barely a squeak from the ACLU. It is a rare occasion when there rants on both the left and right wing blogs are the same - FLDS has managed to achieve what even a butcher like Saddam couldn't.
Not surprisingly the government has reacted very differently in similar situations in the past.
After the widespread sex scandal in the Catholic Church was revealed what did the Government do? - nothing. Priests continue to interact with children in the absence of other adults.
There are numerous underage mother in all parts of the country who continue to live in their homes. They have not been moved to foster homes because they will receive the best care at home.
I believe sexual abuse is merely a ruse to take on the main issue of polygamy that has most americans fuming. While I find polygamy weird there are also laws against adultery and fornication and if all these laws were implemented half the nation would be behind bars.
The state enforced kidnapping of all children from a community reminds one of Ceausescuean Romania. The mothers and children of FLDS are paying a price for their beliefs in a nation that prides itself on its freedoms.
* Texas Child Services continues to believe that Sarah exists and that the raid was justified - feels eerily similar to the "weapons of mass destruction" argument.
** The perception normally is that these teen brides are married to much older middle aged men. Interestingly, Warren Jeffs the leader was convicted last year for forcing a 14 year old to marry a 19 year old boy.
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