another thing about the polygamist’s sect
(I refuse to call it a “cult”. I think that’s more offensive than what these people actually did.)
This has been in the media a lot, but I will explain what’s going on. Basically,
“In 2008, starting on April 4, Texas State officials took 436 children into temporary legal custody after someone claiming to be a 16-year-old girl made a series of phone calls to authorities in late March, claiming she had been beaten and forced to become a “spiritual” wife to an adult man. Acting on her calls, authorities raided the ranch in Eldorado, about 40 miles south of San Angelo. The YFZ ranch is owned by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS), a Mormon offshoot that practices polygamy. Two men were arrested for obstructing the raid, and it remained unclear whether the person who made the initial call has been located by authorities. The children ranged in age from infants to teenagers, including teenage mothers and pregnant teens.”
^that would be from the wikipedia page on polygamy in the United States, found in the “Recent Polygamy Cases” section.
You know, I’m all for freedom of religion. Totally. The first amendment is probably my favorite. That being said, I’m also all for children’s rights and obeying the law.
Firs things first: Just because you are part of a specific group of a specific religion does not mean that the bill of rights gives you the right to do whatever you want.
Secondly: This is a whole ‘nother topic, but I do not believe that God wants old men to impregnate younger women (excuse me, girls) and then avoid punishment. Whether or not polygamy and statutory rape should be illegal is not the question here. Right now, they are, and anyone who breaks those laws should be punished as such.
My apologies to everyone who lost a child in the chaos, or who was separated from a loved one. I can’t empathize with that at all, and I’m sure it was hard to deal with (and I’m sure it still is). However…by bringing this upon yourselves, by knowingly breaking a law-what did they expect? It’s not like the extremely brave individuals who broke Jim Crow laws. I think this just goes back to the whole separation of Church and State thing- religion isn’t an excuse for breaking a law, nor is it a reason to create one.
“However…by bringing this upon yourselves, by knowingly breaking a law-what did they expect?”
Do keep in mind that some of those women, many of them in fact, are so thoroughly isolated and conditioned that they either did not know that they were breaking the law, or truly believed that they had a duty akin to civil rights activists to obey God and their husbands before the law. I’m not excusing their behavior, only explaining it. There is a subtle difference between breaking the law for your own gratification, and doing it because you believe it is the right thing to do. The men, on the other hand, deserve whatever they get, because they were not isolated and fed a diet of crap, they knew they were breaking the law and decided to thumb their noses at the rest of us.
“religion isn’t an excuse for breaking a law, nor is it a reason to create one.”
No truer words
I do agree with what you said about the women having an excuse; what I meant when I wrote the sentence you quoted was that these men told these women lies and “diets of crap”, while 2 were arrested for trying to obstruct a raid of the very thing they started.
Great assessment of a very complex situation. Unfortunately many evil things have been done in the name of Religion which reinforces the absolute necessity for separation of Church and State. We are very fortunate that our forefathers recognized this need when they wrote our Constitution! Great Blog! Keep up the good work!